Gotterdammerung
by Ajora
Summary: The nature of a seed is to survive at all odds, even if it means hibernation. But when the conditions are just right, a seed will bloom. Ryo is on a race against time to find a way to save Ken from both the Dark Seed and Demon before it's too late. compl
1. Prelude

Götterdämmerung  
Prelude  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does.  
*Note: This is a sequel novella to "Phantom Codewalker". I highly urge anyone just getting into this to read at least the chapters after the first one (since only chapter 1 had sex in it), as everything concerning Ryo in this fic borrows heavily from theories established in Codewalker.  
*Warnings and such: take heed of the R rating, especially once I really get this story moving. Trust me. And if mentions of shounen ai (boys in love with each other) makes you squeamish, back out now. 

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There had been three of them, the Tag Tamers. One was now dead, victim to a corrupt syndicate seeking the power to enter the Digital World. The other was bound into the services of the Holy Beasts and the tasks that one had were far more important than those the young man had as a Tamer. And finally, there was him. 

There had been a time when he was a genuine Tamer of the Gennai Order, a secret sect of which Ryo had been a member of. It had been before he met Wormmon and the bond was sealed. He had been reliant on Ryo and V-mon for protection until Ryo was sent to Millenniumon's mountain and the Digital World was split in two. He couldn't quite remember what went on, just that he woke up after a giant quake and found Wormmon taking care of him. Eventually he had the opportunity to introduce his partner to Ryo, and all the while Ryo was watching on with the most comical mix of disgust, contempt, and slight fear. Ryo always did hate bugs with a passion, especially if they were bigger than his hand, green, and had more than four legs. Oh, the Tamer did eventually get over his phobia long enough to tolerate Wormmon's presence, but it was still an amusing memory. 

Ken wondered faintly how his friend managed to handle the employment with such a phobia. After all, there were plenty of arthropod digimon about and plenty of them fit the big, green, multi-limbed criteria. He also wondered just how his first Jogress partner was handling the solitude of that job. While a digimon might provide company, it wasn't quite the same as having another person around. 

Here he was now, in Daisuke's bedroom with the others of his group, and they all should be studying for tests slotted for the morrow. That was the key word, _should_. Miyako and Daisuke were arguing over the sugar cookies Hikari brought while he and Takeru poked halfheartedly through algebra books. Hikari gave up on trying to keep the others from arguing and was intent on sorting out her photo album. 

He had been tempted several times before to invite Ryo back into the real world and among his friends, but Ryo was older than all the Chosen Children now and had been since the time in both the Digital World and Earth synchronized. The Tamer would probably feel out of place. Of course, it wasn't like he never felt out of place either. 

"Whoever developed algebra was a sadist," Takeru grunted at last after having thrown down his pencil and closed the book. 

"His name was al-Khwarizmi, and to be frank his clarification of the system is much more preferable to the convoluted Hindu system that algebra was derived from," Ken found himself replying without really thinking about it beforehand. Amazing how trivial little facts like that managed to stick around in his mind even now that the Dark Seed was dormant. 

"He's still a sadist," the blond proclaimed before reaching over to grab a couple of cookies from under Miyako's and Daisuke's noses. Once they were secured, Takeru dropped one onto the napkin next to Ken's book. 

Thoughtfully, Ken picked up the cookie and nibbled on it. It was... strange... to say the least. Before that unpleasant little incident in the desert, Takeru rarely talked to him and rarely did anything for him. Then these little gestures started. First Takeru was fixing food for him in Ryo's cottage, then offered that dumpling back in the Chinese restaurant. Then the Child of Hope was the first to accept his party invitation without question and had even forfeited a ride home for his sake. Takeru just continued to do these things even now, long after the battle with BelialVandemon. It was times like these that made Ken wonder why. 

This was, of course, even stranger. He could read Miyako and Daisuke like open books now, but he could never quite understand Takeru. Not that he could quite figure out Hikari and Iori either, but they weren't the ones making such gestures towards him. And, while he would never admit to it openly, he liked Takeru's little gestures. Just how much, he wasn't sure he wanted to think about at the moment. 

The two friendly rivals finally settled down after the last cookies were scarfed down, and Ken soon found himself pelted with questions regarding their homework. Most of these were, unsurprisingly, uttered by Daisuke, and he did his best to help without giving the answers outright. Daisuke just wasn't the fool the boy made himself out to be, and Ken enjoyed getting his friend to think with just a little prodding. 

Eventually, however, night fell and they all had to head home. Miyako trotted off down the street outside of Daisuke's apartment, Hikari headed in the opposite direction, which left Ken and Takeru alone to walk towards the Odaiba-Kaihinkoen train station. This was, of course, another thing that had Ken question Takeru's motives... if there were any. He couldn't quite recall when Takeru started walking with him to the train station after study sessions like these, nor had he ever asked about it. They seemed to have developed a silent understanding, if that term was the right one to use in this circumstance. 

They walked in silence, as they normally did. There wasn't all that much that could be said that wasn't voiced already, and neither were all that interested in small talk. The winds that blew in from the bay were crisp and cool, but not cold enough to be unpleasant, and the sky almost clear despite the city's visual pollution. It was, all in all, a very nice night. 

Ken sighed as they finally approached the noisy station built near Odaiba's seaside park. Only the Yurikamome line passed through this part of Odaiba, and it crossed Rainbow Bridge to connect with another train that would take him home to Tamachi. It was a tedious process trying to get anywhere in Tokyo, but at least he had company right now and it did alleviate his boredom. 

Absently he gazed out at the train tracks, shifting among half-formed thoughts. Every now and then his neck felt stiff, presumably from the Dark Seed embedded in his brain stem. Lately, once he settled into as normal a life as he could manage with friends to support him, the stiffness occurred with more regularity. There were even times now when a muscle in the general vicinity of it would twitch for a second and relax as if it never happened. What that could mean, however, was something he didn't want to think about. 

Takeru was talking to him, but he couldn't quite grasp what the blond was trying to say. Somehow all the noise in the station washed away into silence as the sensation of a nail being hammered into the back of his neck began to increase. It kept getting worse with each breath he took until, thankfully, the pain went away. 

Panic spread across the Japan Rail train station as the famed genius Ichijouji Ken collapsed in a dead faint. 

.~*~. 

Akiyama Ryo had never been brilliant. He never had Osamu's skills and never could have managed as much as he did without the elder Ichijouji boy's legacy. That legacy was left in the forms of technical reports, programs, and several essays on Osamu's theories. What could be printed was bound into books and binders, what couldn't was backed up on compact disks. Now, as always these days, he was sorting through everything he could in an attempt to find a solution to the Dark Seed problem. 

For the thousandth time he cursed the circumstances of Osamu's death and cursed the doctors that couldn't save the boy. If Osamu was here they could have found a way to removed the Dark Seed without killing Ken in the process. Unfortunately, no amount of wishing would ever bring Osamu back. 

No amount of wishing would bring Kageko back and restore Libra's sanity. 

No amount of wishing would still the newfound emotions triggered by Ken's acceptance of him back into the boy's life. They were just supposed to be friends. Nothing more, nothing less. The feelings that his tsukaimon liked to tease him about was nothing other than his loneliness making itself known. But then, no amount of second-guessing himself was helping either. 

With a grunt of disgust at his inability to do anything right, the Tamer closed one of Osamu's books and rose from his chair. None of the Holy Beasts could help him concerning the Dark Seed, none of the other Chosen Children he knew could figure out what to do about it. Among all the great minds among the Chosen Ones, none of them could suggest a way of removing the Dark Seed without killing Ken. It was quite discouraging. 

Ken had knocked him out of the way of that seed so long ago and taken it in his stead, and the guilt Ryo carried knowing that pained him like a thorn that would never go away. He should have been the one to suffer, not Ken. There were so many things he should have done and was unable to. 

As the Tamer strode out of his study and past the living room to exit his cottage, he silently berated himself for the directions his thoughts were taking. The Ryo that had formed a Jogress partnership with Ken would have balked at the idea of being more than friends with the boy and certainly would have considered the Dark Seed problem as merely a challenge to overcome. The teenager he had once been wouldn't cling to the past as much as the Ryo of the present did. 

But then even in the Digital World a child is forced to grow up. With a sigh, Ryo looked up into the sky, his gaze following the lazy flightpath of a tsukaimon biding its time. Oh, how he wished he could bring back the past and change everything for the better. 

After having made a big show of being unconcerned with the world and its populace just by the patterns of his flight, Savali the tsukaimon finally touched down gracefully into the Tamer's arms. He cocked his head in curiosity at the depression evident in the Tamer's face. Well, so much for amusing himself by teasing Ryo. 

Even with the children of Earth gaining digimon partners, few monsters remained unbonded, including Savali. The tsukaimon pondered this quirk at times, then dismissed it as just one of those many oddities of the Digital World. He was a virus that never really caused as much trouble as most virii did, generally because he preferred to play with his victims rather than cause mass destruction. Mind games were much more entertaining, and he chose just the right human to play with. He didn't need some stupid bond when he had a plaything. 

The tsukaimon took a few moments to make himself comfortable before deciding to dish out his news. Why he willingly served as messenger and spy for Ryo, he was unable to tell other than that he felt like it and that it was something worth doing. 

"The Chosen Children should have eliminated Demon," Savali stated at last, closing his eyes as he felt the Tamer scratch behind one of his wings. "I've heard from a good source in the Demon Corps that Demon still wants the Dark Seed." 

Ryo grimaced at this. Demon had been too powerful for the Children that dealt with him and was simply pushed aside. Thus the return of Demon was inevitable. "He's the last mega-level virus, that much is uncontested. I can't see why he would need the Dark Seed... unless..." 

Savali let out a yelp of surprise when the Tamer suddenly spun on his heel, entered the cottage and shut the door behind them. Ryo dumped the creature onto one of the chairs with a quick apology before flipping open the security panel. Within the span of a few seconds he keyed in his identification code and activated the cloaking and defense perimeters. 

"What was that all about," the ball of purple and white crowed indignantly from his new perch. Just for that he was going to tease Ryo even more mercilessly than usual once this was all resolved. 

"Were you followed?" 

"No," Savali snapped, offended that the Tamer would think he was stupid enough to get caught or be trailed by any of Demon's lackeys. But then there was always the possibility that his poking around had drawn attention. "Not that I can recall. What's this about, Tamer?" 

The Tamer brushed back a lock of overhanging hair in trepidation as he gave voice to what was on his mind. "Back on Earth there were certain cultures where new rulers would eat the flesh of the recently deceased ruler to gain their predecessors' powers." 

Scrunching up what he had for a nose, Savali uttered his disgust at the concept. "That's sick, Ryo. What does this have to do with Demon?" 

Ryo took a moment to settle into his chair and allow for the tsukaimon to curl up into his lap. "The Dark Seeds were all that was left of Millenniumon after I sealed him away in that crystal, they contain Millenniumon's code and act as insurance that Moon=Millenniumon will rise. If the Dark Seed blooms, Moon=Millenniumon shall be born, and this presents a threat to Demon's status as the last mega-level virus. I think he might be trying to shoot down two birds with one stone. Devouring the Dark Seed would double or triple his own power while eliminating the threat of Moon=Millenniumon's rebirth." 

"If he's the only mega virus around, why would he need more power?" Savali looked up quizzically when the Tamer failed to answer, then prodded Ryo none too gently until he got a response. 

"I have an idea, although I'm not sure if it's anything close to what Demon might really be planning," Ryo stated at last as he resumed scratching behind the tsukaimon's wings. "Mind if I tell you later?" 

The purple and white ball of fluff on his lap gave a derisive snort. "If you're going to tell me, you'll do so eventually. You always do." 

With a sigh, the Tamer leaned back into the soft cushioning of the overstuffed chair, closing his eyes to the rays of light that filtered through the windows' curtains. He had his theories, certainly, but he wasn't quite sure that he wanted to utter them yet. 

He'd have to find some way to extract that Dark Seed without killing Ken, and soon. Demon would have no qualms about devouring Ken along with the Dark Seed; and if it did bloom, Moon=Millenniumon would have nothing against killing its host. Unless he found a way to get rid of the seed, he would lose his last living human friend. And the greatest priority of all was preserving his Jogress partner's life. 

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Ajora: Man, Toei really left Demon too much in the open... The events mentioned concerning Ryo, Ken, and Millenniumon are from the Digimon Wonderswan games. Götterdämmerung, by the way, means "Twilight of the Gods". 

Kageko and Libra are on loan from Meimi. The only original character I can claim as my own is Savali, whose name was given to him by Ryo. Savali's name comes from the name of a Samoan divine messenger, which fits him wonderfully considering the jobs he does for Ryo. Ryo, for the uninitiated, is the kid you see in Ken's flashbacks and was Ken's Jogress partner for the games Tag Tamers and D-1 Tamers. 


	2. Act I, Scene I

Götterdämmerung  
Act I, Scene I  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does.  
*Warning: Osaryo hints and budding Kenkeru shounen ai. No whining now. 

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_ It was dark and cool, the only heat in the room was radiating from a glowing monitor. He didn't mind it really, as he was comfortably bundled in warm blankets and his brother was happily tapping along at the computer they shared. It was boring being sick in bed, though. _

Eventually his brother's cell phone rang, and Osamu answered it with a distracted grunt. He strained to hear what the call was about, but only his brother was audible. 

"Sorry, I can't come to visit right now ... Ken's sick and our parents aren't home yet ... Nothing serious, just a flu. He'll get over it ... Are you sure? I don't want you to catch anything ... Really, you don't- ... You're impossible ... Fine, if you get sick too I'm not going to let you use that as an excuse to run off next time we're challenged to play in the PK servers ... No, I won't petition the DMs to let you acquire a class change. You're the one who wanted to be a halfling, twit. You should have gotten a wood elf or something that can undertake the bard class ... Alright, see you soon then." 

Ken rubbed at his eyes and yawned as he tried to figure out what had transpired, then gave up. Osamu was talking about that game he played online. Some RPG or another. Their parents didn't like the fact that Osamu spent at least an hour or so daily playing a game, but so long as Osamu kept up with his studies, they weren't going to do anything. Besides, it was good stress relief. 

Osamu rose from the computer to kneel at Ken's side. He had been laid out on a futon since the bunk was inaccessible for someone going through vertigo and prone to vomiting soon afterwards. The little boy smiled up reassuringly at the worry in his brother's face. "I'll be okay, 'Samu." 

"I know," Osamu muttered, caressing his forehead with cool fingers that felt pleasant on heated skin. "A friend of mine is coming over to visit. Think you can be a good boy while he's over?" 

Ken gave a slight nod as he muffled the urge to let out a huge grin that his brother would definitely not appreciate. This guy was perhaps the only person Osamu would honor with the title of 'friend' as pretty much everyone else was only interested in Osamu for that brilliant mind that made the boy famous. "Is it that Water Caltrop guy?" 

"Yeah, his real name is Ryo." There was a pause following this, and Osamu's touch settled into a pattern. After awhile the elder Ichijouji spoke again, his voice carrying the tone of one who was not to be questioned. "Aren't you feeling sleepy, Ken? You should recover your strength." 

The child blinked innocently at the question. He wasn't tired, really, but it looked like his brother very much wanted to be alone when Ryo would arrive. That was alright. Ryo was Osamu's best friend, and Osamu liked Ryo a lot. So it would make sense that Osamu wanted to be alone with the guy he liked. Smiling, Ken closed his eyes. 

"Anything you say, big brother," he whispered, allowing himself to unleash a huge grin once he felt Osamu walk away and close the door. Pity he couldn't watch. 

.~*~. 

A desperate voice cut into the darkness like a knife, calling out to him and drawing him up from the void. His eyes fluttered open in surprise as he recognized the voice, instantly focusing upon the concern evident on Takeru's face. 

He was being held in Takeru's arms, only partially aware that they were watched by crowds of curious people that surrounded them. Oddly enough he _liked_ being in Takeru's arms. It was comfortable and he felt safe with Takeru, though right now really was not the time to think along such lines. 

Ken pulled away from the blond's embrace and straightened out his uniform. Lovely, he had fainted in a train station. At least Takeru had been there to catch him and spare him any further indignities. With a self-deprecating smirk, Ken returned his attention to his friend as the crowd resumed what it had been doing beforehand. Namely: not paying attention to anything but their own affairs. 

"Thanks," the raven-haired boy whispered as he picked up his book bag and shouldered it. He glanced up when there was no immediate response from Takeru, cocking his head in curiosity as the beginnings of a blush rose on the blond's cheeks. 

"Ah... it's nothing," Takeru started as he felt his cheeks heat up even more under Ken's gaze. Really, he kinda... liked... holding Ken. More than a friend should. Just perfect, he was going to make an idiot of himself now. Ah well, might as well go through with it. "I'm kinda worried about you, so I- I was wondering if you would mind if I... um... head over to Tamachi with you? Y'know, if something like this happens again." 

Briefly Ken wondered at the deepening color in Takeru's cheeks, then brushed it aside. Neither of them were likely to talk about anything personal unless it was necessary, and this wasn't necessary. Besides, Takeru seemed to have Hikari according to Daisuke and was probably just dabbling in inappropriate thoughts of her. But Takeru's offer to join him on the trip to Tamachi was unusual, even with all Takeru had done for him. 

And he did enjoy Takeru's company regardless of whomever Takeru might be hooked up with. Daisuke was a great friend, really, but there were times he appreciated Takeru's silences more than Daisuke's ramblings. A genuine half-smile quirked at his lips as he stepped towards the boarding area for an approaching train. "No, I don't mind at all." 

The ride to Shinbashi on the way to Tamachi was long and boring, but at least he had company now. When the boys did talk, it was of little things. School, friends, the antics of their digimon partners. It wasn't until later, once the Yurikamome pulled into JR Shinbashi Station and the boys boarded the Yamanote train heading for Tamachi, that Takeru asked something he had been thinking about since Ken's recent collapse. 

"Ken? What happened back there?" 

The raven-haired boy turned his attention from the glowing screen that showed which stops the train was approaching and glanced curiously at the Keeper of Hope. Really, why was Takeru so concerned about him? "Nothing worth worrying about." 

A brief frown passed over Takeru's face at the obvious lie. "Please, Ken, I'm worried about you. You've trusted me before, haven't you?" 

Ken sighed as he stared down at the train's floor. Takeru knew more about him than any of the other Chosen, had known since the day the blond saved his life in the desert and helped him recuperate from multiple wounds. It was that incident that brought them close enough for Ken to trust Takeru... just how much he wasn't sure yet. 

"The Dark Seed," Takeru heard the boy whisper tentatively, as if afraid to speak of it lest the action alone would cause it to bloom. He reached over to squeeze Ken's hand in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. "It... did something and began hurting me. Takeru, it hasn't hurt since it first embedded itself into me." 

Takeru's mind raced at this new revelation, and even darker thoughts pranced around like little demons on the edge of his mind. Was it going to bloom? How much longer did Ken have left? Would Ken return to being the Kaiser? How would he be able to handle it then? Ken was his friend and someone he didn't think he could bear to lose. He had lost and nearly lost too much already. 

But these thoughts were going to get him nowhere, and Ken needed hope. That much, at least, was something he could give his friend. "Maybe it's just trying to get out now? That would be nice, wouldn't it?" 

Ken glanced back at Takeru. Oh, he knew the attempt for what it was, and it was rather touching that Takeru was trying to make him feel better about it. But hoping what the blond said was true would be a pointless exercise in false optimism. "Never underestimate anything, especially the ability of things to turn for the worse. Murphy's law." 

"Murphy's law," Takeru repeated, confused. That was certainly a new term he never heard before save from Wallace and other Westerners on occasion, and they tended to assume everyone knew what they were talking about. 

A tiny smile quirked on Ken's lips. "Murphy's law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. Toast will always fall butter-side down, unless you expect it to. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire. It is fundamentally a law of paradoxes, and not to be taken too seriously." 

Takeru frowned as he tried to grasp the concept. "You believe in this?" 

"Only to an extent, though it's really more of an observation on life's capriciousness than a law," the raven-haired Child of Kindness smiled at his friend's confusion. Really, Takeru was adorable when he was confused. 

Wait, had he just thought Takeru was adorable? Where was that coming from? It was something to ponder at another time, however, for the mechanical voice pouring forth from a loudspeaker soon announced their arrival to Tamachi Station. The two rose from where they had been seated and disembarked without commencing in further conversation. 

The comfortable silence once again fell between the two as they made their way towards the apartment complex in which the Ichijouji family dwelt. Almost straight across Tokyo Bay was Odaiba, and the rainbow glow of the bridge that connected Odaiba to the heart of Tokyo shone like a showgirl's gaudy jewelry. It was always a pretty sight, and sometimes hard to believe that less than fifteen years ago Odaiba was nothing more than a giant landfill. Ken let out another sigh as he approached the entrance to the complex. The problem now was that Takeru now had to take the long ride back to Odaiba alone. Unless, of course... 

"Takeru? It's a long ride back to Odaiba. Would you prefer to spend the night here?" 

Takeru blinked, taken aback by the invitation. He had been over before, certainly, but never actually spent the night. That was odd, to say the least, yet Ken was right about the train rides. "I don't see why not. Mind me calling Mom once we're inside?" 

After unlocking the lobby door, the raven-haired boy smiled back at his friend and gestured for Takeru to enter. "Feel free to. I apologize in advance for my mother, she tends to fawn over anyone I bring home." 

A soft smile spread over Takeru's face in response to the one on Ken's. He liked it when Ken gave one of those genuine smiles, it was nice and certainly made all his efforts as a friend worth it. "Man, if you think that's bad, you should see my relatives in Shimane." 

"I think I shall spare myself and refrain from visiting Shimane then," Ken quipped as they entered an elevator and he punched in his floor number. 

"Good idea." 

Ken fidgeted as they fell silent once again, silently swearing at himself for being so antsy around Takeru of all people. Daisuke would probably be laughing at him right now. This was the exact same way Osamu used to act around Ryo, too, right down to the darting glances and stuffing his fists into his pockets. 

Whatever it was, he was going to have to figure it out soon. Either way, it was going to be a very long night. 

.~*~. 

The sound of tapping keys prevailed in the silent room. It rose above the muffled whirr of a computer's cooling fan, above the tinny and partially muted enka music playing from a local radio station, above the rhythmic breathing of the room's sole human occupant. The canned air was cool but not cold, and the one light in the room spilled out from a computer monitor. 

This was Izumi Koushiro's domain, his haven. Nothing here was emotional, everything did as it was asked to do. Oh, he didn't have the same insecurities he did when he was a child or the same problems with relating to other people, but he was still happiest among his machines. There was something to be said for having more information than he'd ever need right at his fingertips. 

He was flipping through page after page even now. At some point or another he had run across an old 'missing persons' post, namely about one kid who had just disappeared years ago and was never heard from since. This page occupied one window while another was even now loading a hypertext file he compiled containing rumors he had heard in the Digital World. Yet another window depicted a jpeg file of Gennai's latest appearance. 

Individually, none of these windows were all that interesting. Together they presented a puzzle just perfect for him to solve. First there was the 'missing persons' post with a very low quality image of an eleven year old boy who had disappeared. There was nothing unique about this boy. Spiked brown hair, blue eyes, plain features, came from a three-member upper middle-class family with both parents working. No siblings or pets, no friends noted. Presumed to have run away from home. He remembered this boy, vaguely, from what he could recall of the D-1 Tournament. Akiyama had been something of a legend, even if there were those that hated him for his reputation. And then there was Gennai. Human or digimon, no one knew, but the young Gennai looked far too much like an adult version of the Akiyama boy that had run away long ago. 

Figuring out Gennai's true identity wasn't all that hard considering what evidence he had stumbled across, but there was something odd about the timeline which nagged at the back of his head. According to all the information, Akiyama disappeared completely after Yamato's and Taichi's battle with Diablomon but had briefly run away and returned a year before. So the Akiyama boy would have been in the Digital World a year after his own group arrived. It didn't really help that he couldn't remember the last month of 1999 all that well, but that inability to remember nagged at the back of Koushiro's mind. 

That wasn't the problem, however. The problem was that rumors of Gennai have been scattered around long before Akiyama's appearance, and that Gennai and Akiyama had been in each other's presence at least during the D-1 Tournament. So logic would suggest that, perhaps, there had been another Gennai. Intriguing. 

The ping of one of the less obnoxious instant messaging systems penetrated the comfortably silent atmosphere, drawing his attention from his puzzles. Amusement glinted in his dark eyes as he clicked on the incoming message icon and immediately recognized its sender. 

The person known as Gennai at this point in time was on a quest to find something to extract the Dark Seed from the Ichijouji boy without killing him. Koushiro never really cared to learn the specifics, but it was interesting that not even Gennai had the answer to that puzzle. It was even more interesting that, of all the kids in the world, Gennai ended up refering to him if there was something the man couldn't figure out for himself. 

It wasn't all that interesting a message really, just Gennai asking if he had stumbled upon anything while cracking into several government databases that really should have had better protection. The hacker hummed to himself as he keyed up a response that the attempts proved futile and that people should learn to protect their top secret information better, but he did find something interesting that he would like to ask Gennai about. That other thing, the missing memory, he would inquire about later. 

After a couple of seconds he was sent a questioning message, then at that cue typed up everything he figured out about Gennai, and then asked his questions. That took a least a minute or so, but the wait for a response took quite a bit longer. Koushiro eyed the connection warily in case asking such a thing wasn't prudent and would send Gennai offline to protect whatever secrets there were. Absently he tossed a few packets down through Gennai's ip address, not at all surprised when they were bounced back with a few extras that weren't there before. Well, at least Gennai was active enough to notice what he did and return the favor. It was common courtesy among present-day hackers to test each other's defenses, after all. 

Finally the response came after what seemed like a few minutes. Since he was oh so clever, Gennai quipped, he would probably end up figuring it all out anyway. So, far be it for the man to keep secret anything that would inevitably be discovered. Gennai would tell him and it was up to his own conscience whether he chose to share that information with anyone else or not. 

In the beginning, before there were Chosen Children and Tamers, there had been no humans going into the Digital World. One day, many years ago, there was a teenaged boy who stumbled into the Digital World but never found a way home. This was Gennai, the first Tamer. Gennai grew up in the Digital World, and eventually other children arrived. Why or how, Akiyama didn't know, but these children were the first Tamers. There were extreme time differences between both worlds and Gennai had been in the Digital World longer and aged faster than any of the others. Eventually Gennai died, killed in a battle he was too old to undertake. 

The others had been grief-stricken. It was, after all, the first time any human died in the Digital World and it was a horrible reminder of their mortality. Then rumors sprung up around the Digital World of a phantom that wandered like a lost child, always fading away whenever anyone got close. This was termed by one of Gennai's disciples as a codewalker. None of them had any idea what to do about it. It was then that Akiyama joined the ranks of Tamers and told of what happened. It was Akiyama who knew of someone skilled enough to do something about it, and was given permission to reveal what he must to this boy. 

Thus Ichijouji Osamu was told what must be done, and it was he that created the program that reconfigured the codewalker into a sort of shell program. Only other Tamers could use this program as a disguise of sorts, and only if it was necessary. Usage of it had to be rare, for it still maintained Gennai's eccentricity and that eventually rubbed off on anyone who used it for long. Over time the rumors of Gennai's death faded, replaced by rumors that he was still alive. It was not unusual to see two Tamers wandering together, one wearing the shell program for a while, then the other taking it up later on. This was the Tamers' secret. 

Unfortunately, Akiyama was the last of the true Tamers, and as such had worn the shell program longer than anyone else. Fortunately, the Tamer added, he was already a nutcase long before taking up the Gennai identity. 

Koushiro mulled over this story for a while. Everything made a whole lot more sense now. Satisfied that his curiosity was fed if for only the moment, the hacker thanked 'Gennai' and watched as the connection closed between them. That was one puzzle solved, at least. However, the question of just what to do about the Dark Seed remained unanswered. 

Absently the red-haired boy closed the windows that presented his bits of evidence concerning Gennai's identity and opened up a new one with a chart of the Digital World laid out in a Mercator-style map. There was an answer somewhere. And it just wouldn't be him if he didn't tackle the intellectual challenge head-on. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Ajora: Shimane is the little backwater prefecture Yamato and Takeru were vacationing at in the movie Bokura no Wargame. You know, one of the three movies that were hacked up and stitched together to form the Digimon Movie known in the English-speaking world. 

The D-1 Tournament is in reference to the game "D-1 Tamers", where Ryo won the tournament that was brought into being by the Holy Beasts. 


	3. Act I, Scene II

Götterdämmerung  
Act I, Scene II  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does. I don't own Quake either.  
*Warning: Guess what kids, it's love triangle time! Now be honest, who did not see this coming since Codewalker? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Technically he should consider this place home, but home was located elsewhere. The darkness he should have embraced as a vaccine would the light. Logically he should be working for those he spied on, but he was just too loyal to Ryo. Why, he could never figure out, but that was just the way things were. Besides, Ryo was _his_ plaything and Savali liked to keep his toys willing to play along when he felt like it. Otherwise he wouldn't have anyone to play with. 

Savali practically swaggered as he entered the enemy's domain. After all, he was a digimon without a human partner, he could be proud of this fact. No one in the Demon Corps liked those that bonded with humans anyway, which allowed him to fit in perfectly. They didn't know of Ryo, however, and he definitely was not going to so much as utter one word about his plaything. There also seemed to be a couple of rookie virii guarding the gates which suited his purposes well enough. Ryo forbade him from evolving past his champion level, so if he ran into anything higher than his current rookie level that didn't believe his dedication to Demon was sincere, he would be in big trouble. But he was Savali, trickster extraordinaire. Who needed brute force when they had his wits? 

The goblimon sniffed at him curiously while its otamamon buddy spared him an indifferent glance. Once they were satisfied that he was safe, they allowed him passage into the fortress of the Demon Corps. 

Finding where it was hadn't been difficult. He just followed the hints left by any rookie digimon in the Corps whose lips were loosened by bribes of food and a breath or two of intoxicating purple fog. It was far too easy. Getting in hadn't been that much harder. A few honeyed words here and there, a bit of coercion and being friendly with a few of the higher-ups, and his acceptance had been flawless. 

Really, it was enough to make him laugh. 

The tsukaimon flapped lazily down shadowed halls, watching for anyone who looked like they might know something worth his time. He already talked to several of them, but those few had served their purpose and did not have anything else to tell him. So here he was looking for new information concerning Demon's plans. He hovered primarily around gathering places where digimon were most likely to loosen their tongues around their companions, and so far it had worked. He winged even now towards a cafeteria of sorts, making himself as inconspicuous as possible as he flitted from one group of chatters to another. 

There didn't seem to be anything unusual, much to his ire. Nothing seemed to be going on at all. Oh, there were complaints from the lazier digimon about their training and snide comments made about vaccines and humans, but those were to be ignored. Internally he sighed as he started to make small talk with a chuumon who seemed to be babbling something about the nanimon trainer. He didn't want to, but this kind of interaction was necessary if he wished to keep up his facade for awhile longer. Savali's ears perked as the chuumon whined about the increasing workloads. It hadn't been that way the last time he was here. 

After having left the chuumon's company, he sidled over to a group of various vegetable-type digimon who seemed to be talking amongst themselves about rumors that were going around concerning Demon's sudden reactivation of the military training regime. This was certainly interesting. 

With an amused glint in the tsukaimon's large gold eyes, he drew closer to learn more. 

.~*~. 

_ It was so cold, even in the summer heat. He curled into an even tighter ball under his covers, wishing that the chill would go away. He was alone here, sick when he was needed most. But then that was the question: did Ryo ever really need him or was he just the useless third wheel tolerated only because Kageko and Osamu were dead now? _

He reached up to rub at the back of his neck, which felt a bit stiff since he and Ryo defeated Millenniumon. It had been... odd, to say the least. He seemed to remember being sent back to Earth, and Ryo dropping by for a visit. He seemed to remember being sad because Ryo only rarely visited him lately, and saying something about not being permitted to talk to him unless it was necessary. Then there was that notice from the Holy Beasts themselves requesting Ryo's participation in something known as the D-1 Tournament. Then, right before his eyes, the shadow of a great red bird emerged from his computer's monitor to envelop his only living friend. Then Ryo was snatched away from him before he could gather his wits enough to protest. 

Some old guy, one of the original Tamers in disguise if he wasn't mistaken, later summoned him back to the Digital World. He had spent so long bound to his bed and only capably of helping Ryo through the use of a program on his computer that he welcomed the change. Despite his illness, he set up a small reunion party in their cottage that doubled as a celebration in congratulations to Ryo for winning the D-1 Tournament. 

When it was time for him to go to bed, he was unable to sleep even after lying with his eyes closed for hours on end. Exasperated, he rose from his bed, left a sleepy Leafmon with reassurances that he was going to come back, and exited his room. The darkness of night that draped over the cottage was comforting in its own way. He always did like the darkness. Aimless wandering ended up bringing him to the closed door of Ryo's study, where two voices engaged in conversation. Curiosity got the better of him, and he leaned in to catch what was being said. 

"You shouldn't have won," the unfamiliar male voice stated, causing Ken to blink in confusion. What was wrong with winning? "It was too easy. You knew it was just the Holy Beast testing you." 

"He already has me anyway," was the derisive reply from a very familiar voice. "Give him time and a little creativity and he'll probably have me on a collar and leash soon enough." 

This elicited a pause which was only broken after a minute of silence. Then the unfamiliar voice spoke once again, this time obviously distressed. "I can't take this anymore! I have to retire before I go nuts. I suppose Sanctuary Lake and the Gennai persona are yours now. There's no other Tamer left to carry on." 

Ken paled as he heard Ryo swear for the first time. "Well, shit." Another awkward pause fell again before Ryo continued. "Have fun trying to piece your life on Earth back together." 

"Now's not the time for sarcasm, Akiyama." 

"Do you think, maybe, that I can petition Ken's designation to be changed to a real Tamer instead of a Chosen? I've been training him for so long now..." 

"It's impossible, you know this as well as I," the other voice uttered almost chidingly. "Don't give yourself false hope. Besides, once they have you do whatever it is they really called you and Ken in for, they'll have you wipe or lock away his memories. It's best if you try to distance yourself from him as much as possible. We can't afford personal involvements with the kind of job we have." 

He wasn't even aware that he had held his breath until he let out a startled gasp. Ryo wouldn't do something like that to him, right? Was it even possible? 

"Yeah, whatever. It's not too hard to figure out what they want anyway. Is there anything else, Akira?" 

The person he now identified as Akira gave a disapproving grunt. "No, since you don't seem to be listening to me. Just remember that they don't care whether their warriors die off or not. They can always find new Chosen." 

"And the only reason they're keeping the Tamers around is because we're too valuable. After all, says Oshiro, not every kid in the real world can cram as much knowledge in their heads as we've been trained to nor can they work with any digimon they come across. I remember. Why the hell did you think I was trying to train Ken for so long?" 

"He's disposable. You aren't. How much would it take to beat that in your head?" 

"Don't ask. I think Osamu beat me across the head with a book once too often," Ryo countered lightly. "And never once did he manage to drive a point into me." 

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Farewell then, Akiyama." 

Ken slumped back behind a corner as he heard the telltale clapping of hiking shoes against wooden floors which were followed shortly by the subdued scruff of Ryo's sneakers. The footsteps exited Ryo's study and faded as the two Tamers walked to the front door. His chest ached terribly with the weight of that which he had overheard. Disposable. He didn't want to be disposable, he wanted to be important. He didn't want to forget anything either. He just wanted to matter to someone and remember everything. 

Just wanted to matter. Was that so much to ask? 

The tears came then, followed by sobs he tried his best to muffle. He never meant anything to anyone. Osamu had always gotten the attention he longed for, and even after Osamu's death their parents bemoaned the fact that he was no replacement for his brother. He was simply a lowly little boy with a lowly little bug as a partner. How fitting it was that he had bonded with a Wormmon. 

How long he had been sitting and crying over his knees he couldn't tell, but eventually he looked up when he realized that another human had knelt before him. Ryo gazed back at him with blue eyes filled with regret. 

"Ignore Akira, he's such a sourpuss," the Tamer offered reassuringly as he brought out a handkerchief and wiped away the tears. "I think his goggles are too tight or something." 

The boy sniffled as he attempted to put a rein on his weakness. He was nine years old, he wasn't supposed to cry. Crying was pointless and did nothing constructive. He rose unsteadily to his feet as his Jogress partner pulled away, yet his emotional state betrayed the logic his mind fought to bring to the fore and Ryo lifted him before his knees gave way. 

At some point between the moment Ryo picked him up and when he had finally gone to bed, the Tamer did everything possible to reassure him. He took Ryo's words to heart, embraced them as if they were all that could save him. 

"You're all that matters to me now," the Tamer whispered into his ear. 

I'm all that matters. 

"You're perfect, Ken. You deserve so much more." 

I'm perfect. I deserve so much more. 

"You're the only one I care about now..." 

I'm the only one... 

.~*~. 

Ken blinked in surprise as he heard the noise of someone moving around in his room. Technically this shouldn't be unusual and shouldn't have awakened him, but the only creature that would be moving around at this hour of the morning was currently in the Digital World. 

Oh yes, now he remembered. He had invited Takeru to sleep over, and on a school night at that. This of course meant that Takeru had to wake a couple of hours earlier than usual to catch the train to Odaiba. Well, it was his fault that the blond had to forfeit a few hours of sleep so he was doomed to suffer for it too. Not that he minded it, really, for it gave him the time to think about the memories that had surfaced in his dreams. 

Why didn't he remember D-1 until now? Did Ryo really lock away his memories? What was it about their quest that required such a drastic measure? The raven-haired boy sighed as these questions were followed by half-formed thoughts and other questions, wishing as he always seemed to that he had Daisuke's ability to refrain from worrying too deeply about things. Ah, the blessings of being so simple. 

Since he wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep, Ken climbed down from his bunk and joined the blond that was currently folding the old futon mattress so that it could be stuffed back into storage. Takeru had already dressed, and the spare pajamas laid neatly folded and draped over the back of his desk chair. Once done, the Child of Hope straightened and glanced at him curiously. 

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry," Takeru offered nervously as he gave a sheepish grin. He certainly hadn't intended to wake Ken, but then again Ken was very cute with dark hair tousled and looking half asleep. Then he went completely still as that thought darted again like a gleefully oblivious sparrow through his mind. Cute. Oh man... 

"Don't worry about it," the raven-haired boy murmured, wondering at the guarded expression on Takeru's face. He would have asked about it, but this was hardly the time of day to be thinking much of anything. "Heading off soon?" 

Takeru covered up a huge yawn with his hand before nodding. Well, now he knew for certain that he was going to be sleeping in class. "Yeah. Take care at school, okay?" 

Ken uttered his acknowledgement and followed the blond towards the front door, juggling with multiple other thoughts all the while. It wasn't until Takeru was halfway out the door, however, that Ken spoke again. 

"I'm going over to Ryo's after school. There's something I need to talk to him about," he started in an almost timid manner. Takeru's presence alone was doing odd things to him that no one else's did, it disturbed him and was likely to continue doing so until he figured out what was going on. "Would you mind coming with me? I could use the company." 

The blond paused in surprise. This was something Ken would be asking Daisuke, not him. Right? It was all very confusing. "Ah, not at all. Any place in particular you want to meet up before flying over there?" 

"I'll send you an e-mail on the D-terminal when I think of something," Ken suggested, annoyed with himself for being too sleepy to come up with a location immediately. Takeru didn't seem to notice his lapse in intelligence and only gave a farewell and a quick wave before heading off. 

The Child of Kindness let out a yawn as he closed the door and faintly wondered if his parents would reprimand him if he brewed some coffee to keep himself awake. It was after all going to be a very long day. 

.~*~. 

This place has too many memories, Ryo thought uneasily as he waited at the statue of Hachiko in Shibuya for a certain hacker to show up. Long ago he had met Osamu outside of the internet for the first time here. Then Osamu would bring Ken along. Soon enough Kageko joined the act and teased him and Osamu mercilessly for being so close. The weekend outings to Tokyo's trendsetter district had variety, but more or less there was one element that remained the same. This was Shibuya, where fashions and trends were born, and they were the outsiders looking in on the mindless activity of those that spurned them. For the moment they were the sane ones, sane enough not to buy whatever was thrust into their faces. For the time they were together, they were family. 

To think it all started when he cracked into Osamu's computer out of boredom after a Quake session. In his defense, he had to admit that Osamu royally kicked his ass in that game and he was a sore loser. 

A smirk quirked at Ryo's lips. Osamu had noticed the crack attempt and followed his trail. In time Ryo found himself being haunted by the boy for no other reason than as retaliation and an attempt to completely unsettle him. Eventually he confronted Osamu about it in some other online game and, somehow, a friendship was born from the fiasco. 

He hadn't even known that the persona of AugustusKaiser was none other than the famed Ichijouji Osamu until they met for the first time here in Shibuya. Just like he hadn't known that Osamu even had a brother until he met Ken for the first time in the Digital World. The universe has a very twisted sense of humor. 

Well, it had to. After all, some joker out there deigned it necessary to bestow him with the Crest of Loyalty. He could still feel the tag that held it, the metal warm with his body's heat under the black turtleneck shirt he wore. Loyalty he didn't deserve, not when he was too distraught to attend Osamu's funeral. Not when he failed to do anything as the Kaiser rose to power. The Kaiser looked too much like Osamu, he didn't think he would be able to handle a confrontation without completely losing it. And, idiot that he was, he failed to recognize Osamu's advances for what they were and instead flirted with Kageko for awhile. Savali was right, he was such an idiot. It was far too late to do anything. 

And then there was Ken, again. For the longest time he had only ever seen Ken as the little brother he begged his parents for but could never have. He had been so lonely growing up without siblings or pets, and even when he befriended Osamu there was still a void in his being. Ken had filled that, and he adored the boy for it. Ken had always been his little brother. 

At least until the recent event concerning the clone the Kaiser created of himself. A clone that went so far as to rape the boy it was copied from. The Kaiser was a part of Ken's psyche, a personality created to protect Ken from being hurt. If the Kaiser was capable of sexuality, then it suggested that Ken was too. This knowledge, combined with Ryo's aching loneliness, forced him to veiw Ken as more than a brother. The universe had a twisted sense of humor, for he was begining to think that maybe he might have another chance to fall in love. Fall in love with Osamu's little brother, who had grown up to be quite beautiful. Shit. 

The sound of a throat being cleared alerted him to Koushiro's presence and gave him welcome distraction from the direction his thoughts were taking. He threw on the cheerful mask and ushered the boy over to a more isolated place, weaving past merchants as fast as possible in hopes that they could avoid being poisoned with that toxic gas known as perfume that seemed to be popular among Tokyo teens of any year. 

Koushiro had asked the night before for Kageko's medical files and anything else that may refer to the Dark Seed in general. Digging them up wasn't difficult, and now they were tucked under the Tamer's arm. Ryo handed them to the red-haired boy, who flipped through the folders with interest. After a while Koushiro's eyes caught upon a familiar name and widened in recognition. 

"'Case #DS-001. Subject: Sakimoto Kageko. Project overseen by Oikawa Yukio. Project sponsored by...'" Koushiro looked up, disturbed by both the evidence in his hands and the pained expression in the Tamer's face. "Oikawa was funded? I didn't think he had medical knowledge or qualifications necessary." 

"He had fanaticism going for him, which was what they needed in the long run," Ryo offered uncomfortably. The memory of staring down at Oikawa while the man laid dying came by unbidden. He longed to strangle Oikawa after learning about Kageko's death, and that longing stayed with him. It took every bit of willpower he had just to stand by the side and merely watch as Oikawa's spirit became part of the protective spheres of the Digital World. Kageko must have been rolling in her grave that day. "He also had Vandemon's spirit guiding him along." 

The red-haired hacker merely nodded as he resumed looking through the files, many of which were chock full of medical jargon that was beyond him. However, he did have a friend who should know these terms. "If you don't mind, Akiyama," he began apologetically. "I want to bring Jou in on this. He's in medical training now and would be better able to figure these out." 

"I don't see why not. More the merrier. Just don't expect me to start paying wages," the Tamer quipped, relieved at the confidence that surfaced on the boy's face. Maybe they had a chance after all. 

"Of course not," Koushiro responded before sparing a glance at the large clock that acted as decoration on one of the many buildings in the area. "I have to catch the train back to Odaiba. I'll let you know if either Jou or I find anything that might be useful." 

"Thanks for the help." 

Amusement sparkled in the hacker's dark eyes at this. "No, thank you for the puzzle. It's been awhile since I've had anything this challenging to solve." 

Ryo let a whimsical smile dance across his face as the Child of Knowledge trotted back towards Shibuya station. He had been wise to go to Koushiro after all. Now for him to head back home. 

.~*~. 

The cottage was invisible to all unless one knew what to look for, or if one was a Chosen Child seeking sanctuary in times of trouble. But for those it was built specifically to accommodate it was always visible. Finding it with Ken's help hadn't been difficult, thankfully, and soon enough the boys entered what was once Ken's home away from home. 

Patamon and Leafmon went off to a play room especially designed for partner digimon of the rookie level and anything below that, which left Takeru alone in the living room as Ken looked around the house for signs of his first Jogress partner. Once he noticed that there was no hint of Ryo's presence the boy returned to join Takeru. 

He thought his nervousness around the Child of Hope was just the product of a tired mind, but he was still going through it and it was becoming quite frustrating. He liked Takeru a lot but this was getting to be ridiculous and he still hadn't figured out what was wrong with him and why he was acting this way. 

Takeru had never hurt him save for that little fight back when he was the Kaiser, and he did deserve getting pummeled into the ground for what he had done. Takeru was every bit the gentleman to him afterwards, of course, and he liked that kind of attention. It was so subtle that, were he not as sharp as he liked to think he was, he would have missed noticing it completely. Finally, Takeru was there when he needed him as silent support. 

The blond stood like a silent sentinel as he settled into his chair, making him wonder if Takeru was waiting for something or another. "Ryo isn't here right now, I guess we should wait. Take a seat if you like." 

Takeru pulled off his hat and fidgeted with it for a bit. He had spent a good part of the day thinking exclusively about what he was feeling for Ken. In the beginning he was just trying to be a friend despite Daisuke's monopoly of the raven-haired boy's time, though he could never seem to get Ken alone for a moment until that unpleasant event in the desert of the Digital World. Then, as he and Ken discovered mutual grounds on which to build a friendship, they grew close despite the fact that they rarely talked. Everything had been based on tiny actions and silent understanding. At least, it was for awhile. Then he had to go and think dirty thoughts triggered by having Ken in his arms. Just great. He seemed to have developed some perverse desire to want to protect and heal Ken too, if his actions all throughout their time together patching Ken up in Ryo's cottage were anything to judge by. 

After clearing his throat, the Child of Hope knelt before Ken, who was currently comfortably seated in an overstuffed chair. At the boy's questioning gaze, Takeru felt an embarrassing heat rise to his cheeks. Well, hopefully he would be able to pull this off before he made too much of an idiot of himself. 

"Uhm, Ken... I think I... ah," the blond began, the heat in his face becoming more and more uncomfortable with each passing moment. How does one confess to an emotion that was more likely than naught to be unrequited? Oh well, he figured he probably already looked enough like a stammering fool anyway. "I think I like you." 

Ken stared at the boy that was only younger than him by a few months, and it wasn't until he connected Takeru's blushing to the boy's words that the full weight of what Takeru meant registered in his mind. But there was something... "What about Hikari?" 

Takeru shook his head at Ken's whispered words. "She's not interested in me. At least not romantically. I don't think she's interested in anyone that way." 

"Oh." The raven-haired boy blinked at that revelation. Everything was so odd lately, and this was completely unexpected. But even more strange was that this discovery brought him relief from the tension that had been building up since... when? It had to have been after Takeru rescued him, since he couldn't remember ever really noticing the blond before then. 

And then there was another factor. Himself. Takeru needed someone who wasn't tarnished by darkness, someone who wasn't going to incite that holy wrath that Takeru rarely exhibited. Not someone like him, who was capable of vile acts that would make any normal person flinch. "You know what I'm capable of, don't you?" 

"Yeah," the blond voiced an affirmative as he repeated the question in his mind. He had thought about it many times before, but there really was no point in asking himself this again. "I've already thought about it, and it really doesn't matter to me. Besides, I'm hoping you're not going to revert to that personality again." 

Despite himself, a small smile tugged at Ken's lips. "You're such a damn optimist." 

Takeru grinned in response to the adorable little smile on Ken's face. "Yeah, I think it comes with the job description." The grin faded as he remembered something else he was thinking about when he really should have been concentrating in class instead. Reaching forward, he laced his fingers between Ken's, absently noting how slender the other boy's hands were in comparison to his. Ken gazed at him curiously as he rose and leaned in close. 

"I- I want to try something, if you don't mind," Takeru started, face still hot with the excess blood. Faintly he wondered if it was possible for him to get any more red than he already was. "You w- won't mind me trying something, will you? Just something I'm thinking will help me figure out whether what I feel is real or not..." 

Ken simply shook his head, so bewildered by what was going on that he was temporarily speechless. Takeru liking him like *that* was quite unexpected. However, it made returning the favor that much easier. He blinked in surprise as the blond leaned forward to kiss him. It was gentle at first, he almost didn't feel it. His lips parted as Takeru's became more insistent, allowing the blond to slip in a tongue to play with his. 

Something within him tensed then, triggered by the memory of pain and being pressed down upon a stone plate, forced into a kiss after he had been violated... 

But this was Takeru. Takeru wouldn't hurt him, right? This shouldn't be triggering that kind of response. Ken pushed the other boy away, thankful that the action distilled the terror that was starting to rise in him. He liked Takeru and starting a relationship with the blond might be a nice change of pace. Damned if he was going to let that memory screw things up. 

Before Takeru could so much as question him, Ken grinned and shoved the Child of Hope onto the rug before the fireplace. It took more willpower than he thought to keep from giggling at the bewildered look in those wide azure eyes. So long as Takeru felt like it was the boy's duty to protect him, he would be alright. Smiling at that, he leaned down and took Takeru's lips into another kiss. 

How long they had been lying in each other's arms and kissing, neither could tell. They were both too entranced in each other's attentions to notice when someone else entered the cottage sanctuary. And it wasn't until a pained whimper arose not far from the door that Ken pulled away and looked up at whomever it was that intruded. 

There was only one word he could think of to describe the hurt look on his former Jogress partner's face: heartbroken. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Ajora: Oh boy, notations galore. Akira, though he may seem like an original character, is inspired by the boy in the Digimon World 2 PSX game. This character looks like the bastard love child of Taichi and Takeru, and wears a pair of goggles on top of his pirate-like kerchief. He's often considered to be a Tamer. 

The statue of Hachiko has some minor symbolic meaning which shall be more evident later on. The statue was built in honor of the dog Hachiko, who was given to a Tokyo University professor in 1923. Day in and day out Hachiko would follow his master to the Shibuya train station when the professor went to work in the morning, and returned in the evenings to walk home with his master. In 1925 the professor died, but Hachiko continued to make his journeys and continued to wait for his master long after the streets were deserted. Hachiko is said to have done this every day of his life until his death in 1935. In honor of the dog's unusual loyalty, the people of Tokyo pooled their money together and had a bronze statue built where Hachiko once stood. 


	4. Act I, Scene III

Götterdämmerung  
Act I, Scene III  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does.  
*For those who care, this is written in a standard opera-style format. Which means three scenes for three acts, with a prelude and finale. Therefore, this Scene signifies the end of this Act. And guess what, things get shot to hell in the next Acts. Woo? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The cosmos themselves were probably having a great deal of fun at his expense. Something out there must be laughing at him even now. Somewhere, perhaps from outside of whatever had shattered within him, he could hear the laughter. It was strained, edged with insanity. 

It only took a moment for him to realize that it was himself. Oh, how utterly stupid he was to think he ever had a chance. The laughter was a reflex, and so was the unduly flippant comment he made soon after. What was it? Something like: "You kids have fun now, I have to work on something. Please clean up after yourselves when you're done." And he turned to retreat as fast as possible into his study, slamming the door behind him. The latch fell in place with the force of the door's impact with the doorjamb. 

Ryo slumped into the swiveling chair at his desk the moment his knees gave out. He certainly hadn't thought this would happen, but he really should have known better. Hating the Motomiya boy for forming a Jogress bond with _his_ Jogress partner had been futile and never changed anything, though he was still jealous and would probably remain that way for a long time. It was so hard letting go. And then he walked in on Ken quite obviously making out with Takeru. _His_ little Ken was his no longer, and probably never had been. 

What a fool he had been to let go. He had had a chance with Osamu, but had blown that off by flirting with Kageko whom he could understand much better. Osamu was never one for speaking about emotions, and given his own cluelessness when it came to people, he had never once thought that Osamu had been interested in him in such a way until it was too late. Kageko had been more verbose, and he did like her a lot, but she was dead too. He adored Ken, but never thought that adoration would turn into something more when he realized that Ken _had_ grown up. Perhaps, if he had disobeyed the Holy Beasts, _he_ would be the one in Takeru's place right now. 

But it was too late. It was always too late. He would never have a chance again. 

With a sigh, the Tamer dug through his desk's drawers until he found what he was looking for. The bottle of scotch weighed heavily in his hands, as he never dipped too deeply into the alcohol stash, but in this instance it would be light and empty before too long. Once a glass would have been dug up before he opened the bottle, but now he didn't care for such things. 

The liquor burned as it went down, but it was welcome and distracted from the sounds of a desperate fist upon his study's door. Best of all, it was a welcome distraction from the heartache. 

.~*~. 

Ken pounded upon the locked door of his friend's study. He knew too well that the half-crazed laughter from Ryo before the Tamer retreated was a call for help, he had heard it so few times before but always knew what it meant. Soon enough that laughter would turn into sobs, and he had always been there for Ryo when that happened. Except now. 

He didn't even know what he was doing with Takeru would hurt Ryo until he heard that tortured whimper. How long had Ryo felt that way about him? Why didn't his friend tell him anything? Why didn't he notice anything until now? 

Takeru stepped up to him then and placed a hand upon his shoulder, as quiet as always. The raven-haired boy sighed as he let the fist drop. Why hadn't he been aware of things before now? Surely he had noticed that Ryo was a lot more reserved than when they were traipsing around for the first time in the Digital World, but then they had both grown since then and growth brought change. That much was to be expected. But this... 

"I didn't know," Ken murmured, staring at the grains in the wooden door before him. He could almost feel the confusion radiating from Takeru and wondered faintly just how he was going to explain this to the other boy. After all, Ryo's reaction wasn't that of a normal person, and he really didn't want to burden the blond with the full knowledge of Ryo's feelings towards him. If they were what he thought they were, at any rate. 

This of course meant that he could not act on his attraction to Takeru while Ryo was around and likely to walk in on them again. The idea of refraining from displaying affection did not bother him; after all, he was not all that demonstrative to begin with. But he just did not want to live with this kind of tension looming over them. 

A slight frown creased Takeru's features as he played back the recent scenario in his head. He just didn't know Akiyama nearly as well as Ken did, but there was nothing sane about the strained laughter coming from the Tamer after Akiyama saw them kissing. He wondered just what was going on, since Ken had peeled off of him the moment Akiyama ran off and looked to be very distressed. Then, ushered by the gravity of the situation, came the memories of those first few days he spent in Akiyama's cottage. How Akiyama looked when Takeru first appeared at the cottage with a severely wounded Ken draped across Pegasumon's back, the sheer rage on the Tamer's face at whomever had raped Ken the night Akiyama's foreign technology revealed lacerations in places they shouldn't have been. He had just brushed it off as a sort of elder brother complex then; hell, Yamato would probably react the same way. Now he wondered if it wasn't something more. 

Dammit, why did things have to be so complicated? In a perfect world he should have been able to tell Ken how he felt, Ken would feel the same way, and that was it. No one would be hurt by it, and their friends might even fully support their relationship. He hadn't even taken the others into account. Oh great, what would Daisuke think? He knew Daisuke had formed a crush on Hikari, but that eventually died out after a while and he wondered if the goggle-boy redirected that attention from Hikari to Ken. How foolish he had been not to even consider any of this beforehand. 

Sighing, Takeru took Ken into a hug even as the other boy leaned back into his arms. Well, at least since Akiyama didn't look like he was going to come out soon, they had at least some time for this. In light of all the new complications arising from his recent realizations, holding Ken was very comforting at the moment. Ken must have been as distressed as himself, and he wasn't quite sure what to do about it. However, just moments later the silence was disturbed by the sound of desperate scratching at the front door. 

After mouthing an unvoiced thanks to whatever it was out there that interrupted his unpleasant train of thought, Ken pulled away to open the door and allowed a certain virus digimon into the cottage. 

Savali darted in, golden eyes glancing around frantically for any sign of Ryo. When his survey failed to procure an indication of the Tamer's presence, the tsukaimon returned his attention to the two boys who seemed out of sorts for some reason he doubted he could fully fathom. Something was very wrong and he did not have the time to sort this out at the moment. 

"Where's Ryo," asked Savali, his voice edged with impatience. There was news he had to announce and he would only ever report to the Tamer. The two humans looked at each other in regret laced with something else he couldn't quite figure out, then at the closed door of Ryo's study. The way that blond kid hovered over Ken reminded him of how that pissy little Elecmon at Primary Village hovered over all those annoying little hatchlings, except there was something substantially different about it and he then recalled the look that passed over Ryo's face when the Tamer had talked to him about Ken for the first time. Oh, of all the stupid things... 

"He locked himself in the study," Ken murmured as guilt passed over that pale face, and that look confirmed Savali's suspicions. If the current situation in the Demon Corps wasn't as dire as it was now, he would have actually been amused by this. But now was not the time to laugh at the stupidity of humans and their silly emotions. 

Once he bit down a scathing comment he would very much like to utter about how in the world Ken could be oblivious to Ryo's feelings, the tsukaimon rolled his eyes in disgust and fluttered back to the front door. "You two, go pack supplies. Ryo must have a loose pane somewhere in his study's window and I'm going to find it." 

The two looked at him in surprise before one of them spoke up. "Pack? What for?" 

With a grunt of annoyance, Savali pinned Ken under a golden-eyed glare. Damned if he was going to be the one to dig their own graves just because he would normally refuse to answer Ryo's darling little Jogress partner. "The boogiemen are coming for you, little boy. It just so happens that Demon's having his troops do a sweep of every sector of the Digital World. Starting with that lovely little desert that's oh so close by. And Demon's seems to have acquired a pet that's capable of sniffing you out, so the cloaking perimeter would be useless." 

He did not stick around to see the stunned expression on Ken's face, or the panic that was rising in Takeru's. Savali winged towards the front of the cottage and settled before the window of Ryo's study. The cottage was too well built, and there just weren't any imperfections in the window's glass or in the material that bound it. But he refused to be hindered by this. 

Savali clawed and pounded upon the glass, and screeched at the figure inside. This was beginning to prove futile. Ryo was simply too caught up in his own self-pity to notice the furious tsukaimon. Then, as if driven by a miracle, the window pane loosened within its constraints. Grateful for this new occurrence, Savali pounded against it even more until it finally gave way and he barreled inside with the force of his own attacks. 

Angered by the situation and by the fact that this had taken far longer than he liked, the tsukaimon was not in the frame of mind to cater to Ryo's selfish moods right now. He smacked the half-empty bottle of alcohol out of the Tamer's hands and raked a claw down his plaything's cheek in hopes of snapping Ryo out of whatever trance he was in. Unfortunately, that action didn't seem to have much effect on the Tamer's sluggishness. 

"Wake up, you fool! They're coming for your precious little Ken and they'll be here soon," hissed Savali, his anger mounting as the weight of his warning didn't seem to fully register in the Tamer's mind. 

"It's too late, don't you see," Ryo whispered, blue eyes clouded and distant under the alcohol's influence. The tsukaimon growled at the notes in the Tamer's voice that suggested that Ryo wasn't even really there anymore. Ryo had been in the Digital World too long, the insanity that all Tamers eventually succumbed to must have finally caught up with him. What lovely timing, Savali thought dourly. 

He clawed at the Tamer again, this time raking across Ryo's chest. No, he was not going to lose his plaything, not like this. And not now. "While he's still alive you'll always have your chance. Don't be an idiot, don't let Demon take that away!" 

Something seemed to shift within Ryo, and clarity slowly returned to the Tamer's eyes. Breathing a sigh of relief at this, Savali fluttered up to eye-level and repeated what he told Ken, adding in a more detailed field report. Once done, the tsukaimon settled on the desk before Ryo and waited for some sign of what to do next. 

Ryo leaned back into his chair, rubbing his temples in what was probably meant to distract from the birth of an alcohol-induced headache. "This pet that you mentioned Demon has, what is it?" 

"Don't know, no one knew much about it." Savali then groused under his breath about the uselessness of certain champion digimon who wouldn't be nice and tell him anything. "All I know is that it's capable of 'sniffing out its own', whatever that means. We can't keep Ken here. I've told him to pack all the supplies he can." 

"Good, we'll have to relocate to Sanctuary Lake. It's a bit far, but it's just far enough out of the way for the moment." The act of rising from his chair was slow, but at least it offset the vertigo Ryo would probably be going into were he not familiar with the more unpleasant aspects of alcohol's effect on his system. And a bigger crisis like this at least provided distraction from the heartache. 

Savali's mood lightened considerably as his plaything picked him up off the desk and held him close. Normally he didn't like being held like a kid's stuffed toy, but Ryo was going through so much now and needed the comfort that the action would bring. That much, at least, was worth the minor annoyance. 

The two exited the study, and much to Savali's relief he noticed that the boys indirectly responsible for Ryo's recent emotional state were not in the immediate vicinity. They must be somewhere on the second floor, where the bedrooms were located. He hissed to himself as he then heard the thud of footsteps descending down the stairs, which caused Ryo to squeeze him closer. Stupid humans. Some day, when this crisis would be over, he would make sure to torment them as mercilessly as he did to Ryo. 

Ken paused halfway between the living room and the study, taken aback by the vicious glare that Ryo's tsukaimon pinned him under. But, to be honest, he believed he deserved it for making out with someone under his former Jogress partner's own roof. The Tamer wasn't even looking at him now. Sighing, he shouldered an old yellow bag that had Ryo's name stitched on the carry strap. It had been all he could find that was large enough to pack things into and he just couldn't bear to look around in Kageko's room for another bag. All his questions about D-1 would have to wait until later. 

"Where do we go?" 

Ryo blinked at the question, allowing himself to lapse back to the strictly-business young Gennai personality he had built up based on his first teacher in the Digital World, Oshiro. It was much less painful. "Oh, we should head to Sanctuary Lake. I doubt you remember it. We were visiting back before Oshiro died and left it to Akira. I think Takeru remembers it, though. Right?" 

With an uneasy nod, Takeru shifted from where he had been standing behind Ken. He really didn't know how to act around the Tamer now that he figured out what Ryo was probably going through. "Yeah, we hid out there once or twice." 

"Good, then you can probably find it," Ryo began as he strode to the security panel beside the front door and began fiddling with it. "You two, grab your partners and get a head start. I have to secure the place." 

Another silent look passed between the two boys as Ryo idly toyed with the panel's keys, and he heard them move towards the playroom to retrieve their digimon. Once done, they exited the cottage and left him alone with Savali. 

A self-deprecating smirk flashed across his face at that. Alone. He would always be alone. That was just the way things were. He was the last true Tamer, after all. No wonder they all eventually went mad, what with how little contact they had with the outside world and other humans. Alone. All alone. Alone, alone, alone. 

Savali looked up as he felt something wet splatter on his head, frowning when he noticed the expression on the Tamer's face. Humans were so weak when they were governed by emotions. With something that might have been either a grunt of disgust or a noise of acceptance, he allowed his plaything to cry into his fur. 

.~*~. 

Blue eyes scanned the horizon for any threats that should approach them. Nothing, yet. Somehow that worried the Child of Hope. Things had just turned for the worse, and usually when that happened Gennai was there with the answer. Of course, 'Gennai' now seemed to have a one-sided infatuation with the same boy he was interested in. What was there to do? Surely if he had known about the Tamer's feelings, he would not have been so bold as to approach Ken like he did. It just wasn't something he would do given his own insecurities about romantic relationships in general. After all, he still remembered his parents' divorce far too well to ever want to go through something similar himself. 

What was he to do now? He liked Ken a lot, and part of his reasoning for approaching the Child of Kindness like he did was because he wanted to be the one to heal and hopefully protect Ken. He had also thought that there wouldn't be anyone else who felt the same way. Obviously he was wrong. 

Sighing, he briefly squeezed his arms around the boy seated before him on Pegasumon's back. Ken had been tense at first about the position, but had eventually been convinced that it was for best in case the Dark Seed would begin to act up again. Besides, it _was_ quite nice having his arms around Ken, even if his hands were full with Pegasumon's mane. Leafmon was cradled in Ken's embrace, which meant that Ken's arms weren't free and Pegasumon's flight would have to be as smooth as possible so that they wouldn't all go falling off if something happened to upset the flight. 

The approaching noise of something mechanical drew his attention, and Takeru glanced back only to recognize the mechanorimon that Ryo used as transport. Well, at least they had company now, though he still wasn't sure what to think of the Tamer now that he was made aware of the other's feelings. But this was Ken's childhood friend, so he just assumed he was to be as civil as always. What else was there to do? 

Takeru returned his attention to Ken as he felt an alarming shudder in the body before him. His eyes widened in astonishment as he watched the skin in the back of Ken's neck move as a muscle underneath it twitched with a violence that couldn't be natural. Then, as quickly as it began, the twitching stopped and Ken slumped forward in a faint. 

Leafmon squeaked in panic underneath the Child of Kindness, which only served to heighten Takeru's sense of despair. It couldn't be happening now. Not so soon. In what could only be reflex, he clamped his knees against Pegasumon's ribs to ground himself and better hold the unconscious boy while he freed a hand to wave desperately at the mechanorimon's pilot. For the moment his mind relapsed to the memories of a child who trusted everything anyone told him. Gennai knew everything, Gennai would know what to do now. 

The mechanorimon steered closer, and the person who went under the alias of 'Gennai' opened up the glass hemisphere to get a better look at them. Takeru couldn't hear the sharp intake of breath over the winds, but what followed was more than enough to worry him. 

"I thought I had more time..." 

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Ajora: From here on out, expect this to live up to the 'R' rating ^_^. I apologize for the amount of time it took me to write this, but, erm, I've been spending a good portion of my free time doing medical and physics research (along with playing Tag Tamers/Anode Tamer and being stunned by how close I've gotten to Ryo's personality {eee, he's adorable when he's depressed}, and drawing up the floorplans for Ryo's cottage which I can scan if anyone's actually interested). Sorry. 


	5. Act II, Scene I

Götterdämmerung  
Act II, Scene I  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does.  
*Erm, I think I should have given a slight-Joushiro warning ahead of time. Sorry. I also apologize in advance for the medical jargon ^_^. Can't you tell I'm a science fan first and foremost? Oh, and Daisuke has bad language in this, but it's to be expected given what he's found out. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Things tended to be quiet between them. It had to be, as neither were much for small-talk, and any discussion between them was usually restricted to theories and information. Koushiro liked it that way, and he liked it when the person he was talking to was capable of keeping up with him. 

Jou sat on his bed, with Sakimoto Kageko's medical files scattered around him and several books stacked to one side that Koushiro had no interest in plowing through. Medicine was Jou's domain, not his, and he preferred to keep it that way. This did not prevent him from picking up bits of trivia when Jou explained something or another, however. 

The taller of the two nudged his glasses back up his nose with shaky fingers as he closed the final folder. From everything he had researched and analyzed since Koushiro handed him the files, the situation looked to be very bleak. Personally, he wasn't all that surprised that the patient died in surgery. A pessimistic voice within him rattled on about how he really should tell them all to just give up, that Ichijouji couldn't be saved. There were too many things that could go wrong, and that idea alone was distressing enough. Yet no one who had ever thought of medicine as a career wanted to be the harbinger of a death sentence. It was very discouraging, but he would have to try. He may not have known Ken all that well, but it was someone he knew, and the thought of Ken dying on the operating table was enough to put him into the emotional state he was trying to hide from Koushiro. 

Unfortunately, that wasn't working very well, since Koushiro glanced at his shaking hands and probably figured out what he was feeling anyway. 

Koushiro needed to know just how bad the situation was, then perhaps the other boy would be able to find a way out of this particular hell. 

"I'm not making any guarantees, and I doubt it'll even work," Jou paused to lick at lips that had gone dry with nervousness before continuing. Oh, how he hated being a pessimist. "But we can try. Tell Gennai that we'll need a myelogram, ECG, and X-rays taken before we can begin. The basics of what we would need to do is perform a laminectomy, which means we'll need the proper equipment. The laminectomy would get the bones that cover the medulla oblongata out of the way. Then it gets a lot more complex. From the looks of Sakimoto's files, I'm running on the assumption that while embedded in the cord, the Dark Seed takes a shape similar to an astrocytoma. It's a kind of tumor of the nervous cells." 

Koushiro winced. So he may not have known much about surgery, but Jou's suggestions just sounded painful. "I take it we'll be dousing him in anaesthesia beforehand?" 

"Only way to do it," the other offered with a dry, humorless smirk. He would just have to present the facts first, and address his feelings about the matter later. "The problem with the Dark Seed in Sakimoto was that its fibers were too deeply interwoven with those of her spinal cord. Also, by the time she was operated upon, the Dark Seed had converted the calcium in her vertebrae into a kind of shell and that the removal of the infected bone left her without the C1 and C2 vertebrae. I'm assuming it's done the same thing in Ichijouji, but I would like a few myelograms and so on just to be sure. 

"So the situation is as follows: 1) If it's at all possible, new vertebrae would have to be carved from surgical coral beforehand to replace the infected bones. The problem with this is that Ichijouji's system might reject the coral. 2) As much as the Dark Seed may look and act like an astrocytoma, it's not one and will have to be removed in an entirely different manner. On a similar vein, the Dark Seed's fibers are too deeply interwoven into the immediate area on the spinal cord. 3) Even if, by some miracle, it would be possible to yank the thing out, the nervous tissue would scar, and that kind of tissue scarring hampers the healing process and would probably leave him paralyzed. And that's if we're lucky. I probably haven't touched on all the bases, but that should give you an idea of just how bad the situation is." 

A grunt of annoyance rose from the red-haired hacker as he crossed his arms before him and peeled his eyes from Jou to glance at his computer screen. Akiyama had entrusted him with a puzzle to solve. He was not going to back down until that puzzle was answered and the Dark Seed gone for good. His vision blurred a bit as he withdrew into his own mind. There had to be an answer, somewhere. But how... 

The clatter of hard plastic jewelcases snapped him back to reality, and he glanced back to the other Chosen Child who had inadvertently knocked over a pile of CDs sent to him from a pen-pal in the Americas. Jou was really far too distressed about this for his own good, and Koushiro thought it would be time soon enough to try and calm his friend down. Jou picked up one of them with hands that were still shaking and stared at its cover in curiosity. 

"This is a bizarre picture," Jou stated as he studied it with more care, distracted for the time being by the sheer abnormality of it. "There's a hairless lab mouse with a human ear growing out of its back." 

Koushiro blinked at him, momentarily unsettled at the oddity of the CD booklet Jou was showing to him. The CD itself was unimpressive, it was just by some band that Wallace seemed to think he would like for some reason or another. But that image of the mouse was somehow familiar... 

Then, as if struck by divine inspiration, Koushiro's face lit up as he remembered just why the mouse was familiar. There was an answer after all, and it had only recently been revealed by the Vacanti brothers in the United States. He still had the news articles somewhere, and was certain he could dig up more detailed reports on the internet. 

With a pleasant grin at his friend, the Child of Knowledge waved Jou over to the desk to look at his screen. "I do believe you've found our solution." 

Still a bit out of sorts, Jou joined his friend at the computer desk and glanced at the screen in hopes of seeing something that would solve all their problems. What there was, however, were several windows in the process of loading a few news articles. Medical news articles, and what interested him most was how one of the brothers listed discovered primitive cells much like fetal stem cells but much more capable of surviving for long periods of time. These were nicknamed "spore-like" cells and were capable of growing into whatever was required. 

Sighing in relief, Jou settled on the chair Koushiro abandoned and took a closer look at them. Given time, he could grow new vertebrae to replace those that had been infected, and if they were implanted with a batch of autologous spore-like cells, there would be no danger of Ken's body rejecting the new parts. 

Deceptively slender yet strong fingers began to knead the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck, and he looked up quizzically at the red-haired hacker standing over him. The smile Koushiro gave him was soft, almost concerned. 

"Feel better?" 

Jou closed his eyes as he returned the smile. "Yes, thank you." 

.~*~. 

He was always secondary, no matter where he was there was always someone more important. He wanted to be important and had hoped things would change in his favor in the Digital World. As if intending to prove him wrong, no one even payed attention to him in the Digital World. He was always "Ryo's friend" and immediately told of how Ryo saved the Digital World before. And then it happened again after the group affectionately called the "Tag Tamers" defeated Milleniumon. Even then, he was still a sidekick to the illustrious hero who saved the Digital World not once, but twice. It wouldn't have bugged him so much if Piccolomon and everyone else would stop rubbing his nose into it. The only person who didn't was Ryo, and Ryo had been oblivious to the flattery. 

These thoughts stayed with him even now, as he and Wormmon strode down the halls of some place or another that didn't seem terribly interesting when he had been told about it. When he first voiced those worries, Ryo had simply told him to ignore it. After all, he was very important to Ryo and Wormmon, and that was all that mattered. Supposedly. He shouldn't have been so ungrateful for all the kindness his friend showed him, but he was entitled to a little selfishness. Right? 

Ken paused as he noticed Ryo and V-mon running towards them. That was unusual. His Jogress partner stopped before him, taking a moment to catch a breath before proceeding. 

"Hey, remember when we defeated Millenniumon," the Tamer asked, then reached up to brush back a stray lock of brown hair that had fallen over his forehead. At Ken's nod, he continued. "I thought we sealed and neutralized him, but he's back and we have to go see Akira now to see what he has to say about it." 

Something rubbed against his leg, and it took Ken a moment to notice that it was Wormmon. This attempt to soothe him was something he was used to, but the idea that Moon=Millenniumon was back was very unnerving. 

He allowed himself to be dragged elsewhere with Wormmon in tow. They eventually met up with Akira, or Gennai as the Tamer was known as while under the disguise of an old man, at some place called Sanctuary Lake. Pleasantries were exchanged, but something struck him as wrong. Wasn't Akira supposed to be retired now? 

When he asked the other Tamer, Akira's disguise was deactivated and he was stunned by how haggard the Tamer looked. Akira stretched out his wrist, revealing a silver ring inscribed with the runes of the Digital World. "They_ won't let me go," the goggle-wearing Tamer stated with a mix of despair and acceptance. "Not until _it_ is gone." _

Bewildered, Ken looked up at Ryo for anything that might decode Akira's cryptic response. Ryo's expression was carefully shielded, however, which meant that he was going to have to ask for an explanation later. 

"Millenniumon seems to be quite taken with you, Akiyama," Akira began, suddenly grinning like a maniac when he had been sullen only moments before. "He keeps coming back for your head. How many times will he have to return before he finally gets it?" 

Ryo's grip on his hand tightened, and he gave it a reassuring squeeze. Some people had recurring inner demons to deal with, Millenniumon had become a very real demon that tormented his friend's dreams in the darkest nights. "This will be the last time, hopefully. What's the situation?" 

Akira led them to a room that had a map of the Digital World laid out, then pointed at the broad expanse of desert close to the cottage Ryo built a while ago. "Piccolomon's identified Moon=Millenniumon in this area. The Holy Beasts wants you to take care of him before he presents a serious threat to their power over the Digital World. The Holy Beasts are 'They Who Must Be Obeyed', after all. Fail to obey, and..." the Tamer extended his arm before them, wriggling it a bit so they would take notice of just how tight the ring was. "Well, no one fails to obey once they stick one of these on you." 

Ken stared at the ring in fascination. It looked like a holy ring in form, but it was made of the wrong material and looked to be made only for humans. Was it possible to make something like that, but for digimon? What did it do anyway? 

Before his thoughts could proceed any further, Ryo bade farewell to Akira and dragged him out of the room. 

They stayed at Sanctuary Lake that night, and he didn't think any more about that strange ring. In the morning they were off to the desert, their digimon partners bouncing with joy at the prospect of going into battle once again. On the way, Ryo told him everything about the Holy Beasts, explaining that they were the hegemony whose influence spread across the extent of the Digital World. They were the ones who brought Chosen Children and Tamers to this world. They also couldn't care less what happened to their humans since every Chosen Child could be replaced. They were the ones who ordered the humans around to fight battles they refused to dirty their own hands with. 

Something within him wanted to rebel against this, against the way the Holy Beasts used his kind at their whim. The night he and Ryo won the battle with Moon=Millenniumon, he scribbled out a note to himself in hopes that it would help him remember once the Holy Beasts had his memories locked away. This note was to be given to Wormmon with the order that Wormmon was going to give it to him when he returned to the Digital World. 

On this note he scribbled out the words from Ryo that had become a mantra to him, then under those lines... 

"If there are lapses in my memory, They_ are responsible. Some day a rebel will rise up against Their reign." Just before he sealed the note completely, he recalled Akira's appearance, and opened the note again to add something else: "I refuse to become Their slave as They have done to others of my kind." _

.~*~. 

Retribution. While he was the Kaiser, his game of conquest had been an unconscious act of retribution against the Holy Beasts. While he was the Kaiser, he couldn't remember why he wanted retribution or who They were, but somehow his mind had associated Them with the native population of the Digital World. _They_ were likely to enslave him if he did not enslave Them first. That was his act of rebellion. 

Stupid of him to have written that note so cryptically. Sighing, Ken opened his eyes to a room that was only illuminated by the soft glow of a single nightlight. Takeru slept curled up besides him, lips slightly parted and moving ever so minutely with each breath. He reached out to brush away the strands of golden hair that fell over Takeru's cheek. The Child of Hope was really quite adorable and looked so innocent in slumber. He liked that, perhaps more than he should. 

Ken withdrew his hand as his thoughts wandered someplace he had been trying to avoid since the incident in the desert. What the manifestation of the Kaiser did to him suggested that he was certainly capable of such violence. Of course, it also suggested something else. He had never been attracted to the opposite sex, and never really found them all that interesting to begin with. Nevertheless, he was still young and perhaps that would change in time. But somehow he doubted that. Was he actually gay? Somehow that neither surprised or worried him. He had spent too much of his life trying to be someone he wasn't, and he was sick of hiding from himself. If he was what he suspected he was, so be it and screw anyone who wanted him to be otherwise. By some miracle or another, Takeru liked him enough to want to kiss him; and once he ground out his phobias for the moment, he enjoyed the kisses that followed afterwards. 

Telling his parents would probably have to wait until he moved out, but he rarely conversed about his personal life to them anyway. The other children were likely to find out on their own if he wasn't careful, though that hardly worried him. Miyako had probably read enough shoujo manga and most likely wouldn't be surprised. Iori he wasn't sure about, but that much was to be expected. Hikari probably wouldn't care since it didn't involve her. He was unsure of Daisuke, but the goggle-boy was hardly the type to shun him just because of his orientation. Daisuke held friendship in too high a regard to drop him because of something like that. Knowing the other boy, Daisuke would probably even fully support him. It was so nice finally having friends like that. 

Before his thoughts could continue, he was interrupted by a sharp pang of hunger. Certain that he hadn't eaten for a while and would have to amend that, Ken rose from the futon he shared with Takeru and padded past their sleeping digimon partners to exit the room. The oriental architecture hinted that he was in the house under Sanctuary Lake. Just wonderful, he had fainted again. Ken still remembered bits and pieces of the layout and wasn't long in finding the kitchen. A coffeemaker was active in keeping a half-empty pot warm, which probably meant that Ryo was pulling an all-nighter. Ignoring it for the moment, the boy dug into the pantry and drew out several rice cakes. They would do for the moment. 

Ken took a moment to pour an extra cup of coffee in case Ryo needed it and strode off to the den that many Tamers before Ryo had used. Studies, dens, libraries, and fireplaces, what was it about those that made them absolutely required in the building of any structure used by a Tamer? No Tamer dwelling he had ever been in was without at least one of those, though he had heard that Oshiro's original house in a snowy section of the Digital World held all three plus a fireplace that made the others green with envy. Sanctuary Lake was Gennai's home and had been passed down since Gennai's death from one Tamer to another and was always used to harbor Chosen Children that were in danger or needed a place to hide. 

Ryo had been trying so hard to train him as a Tamer, going so far as to introduce him into their oddball culture and introducing him to all of those that were still around. But Ryo had been oblivious to the pitying glances and condescending words they offered, though Ken was made too aware that they did so because they knew he couldn't be one of them. Years afterwards that nagged at the back of his mind, taunting him with the fact that, if it wasn't for Wormmon's presence, he would have been a genuine Tamer. That was eventually warped by the Dark Seed and Oikawa's manipulations into resentment towards Wormmon. The closest real Tamers got to a bond was the temporary bonds they shared with at least two digimon over their lifespan, and even then it was a rarity when those bonds reached the depth that the Chosen had with their digimon partners. 

He was tired of feeling the need to be something he wasn't. Why couldn't he ever be satisfied with who he was? 

The den was already open, and partially muted death metal music made a feeble attempt to pound as it would were the volume any higher. The current song was something in very bad English, by that band Ryo liked because the group tended to do everything from neo-classical symphonies to death metal to angsty romantic ballads. Ryo was also fond of it because the band members tended to have their hair dyed outrageous colors and one of them was a male crossdresser who had no problem passing himself off as a woman. Of course, that last bit could probably describe any number of other Japanese rock bands who had never escaped the '80s. 

The Tamer himself was seated at a computer and typing away on it, and it wasn't until Ken cleared his throat that Ryo looked up and noticed him. Ryo grinned tiredly at him, looking as if nothing had ever happened to upset the Tamer. 

"You're up now, good. Koushiro and Jou want to know if you're allergic to anything." 

Ken blinked in mild surprise at that question. "Not to my knowledge. What's this about?" 

"They've figured a way to get that Dark Seed out of you, but need to know what allergies you have so they can find some suitable anaesthetics for the operation." Ryo rubbed at his bleary eyes before taking a brief moment to send Ken's answer to Koushiro. He did so hate all-nighters. "Surgery's the only way to go, apparently, but you'll be out the whole time so you shouldn't be feeling much of anything." 

Mixed feelings began to well up within the Child of Kindness at this revelation. There was hope after all, but there were always risks that came with surgery too. Knowing what he did about his own recurring streak of bad luck, it was more likely than naught that things would end up turning for the worse once he was put under the scalpel. Tack on the fact that he had never been operated on before, he wasn't quite sure what to think about all this. "Surgery? I've never..." 

"Don't worry, we'll take care of it," the Tamer began nonchalantly as he popped open the CD player and replaced the music disc with something more soothing. Once done, he returned his attention to his Jogress partner and eyed the steaming mug appreciatively. "Mind sharing that coffee?" 

Murmuring a quick thanks as Ken handed him the cup of coffee, Ryo took a few sips before going into length about Jou and Koushiro's ideas, detailing everything he could as he went along. While he didn't understand half of the medical babble Jou messaged him with, he did have an impeccable memory and recited it all without once referring to his logs. At one point during his recitation, Ken settled on a clear area on the desk and nibbled on one of the rice cakes. The questions came the moment he finished. 

"Vertebrae will take a while to build even if you do have a structure on which the cells will grow. How do you plan to accelerate the growth process?" 

"Simple," a mischievous smirk quirked at his lips as Ryo said this. He reached into one of the large pockets in his cargo pants and pulled out several phials of a viscous fluid, reddish-brown in color. Then he dragged out a clear plastic bag containing fine beige powder. "The red stuff is wet-form nanotechnology. The dry beige stuff acts as a sort of catalyst for them and the speed at which the red stuff works is dependent on how much beige stuff is available. I've used these before and they worked pretty well the first time." 

It took more than a couple of seconds for Ken to regain his wits. Nanotechnology was possible, and he'd read a few articles on it in the past, but to think that examples of it actually existed and were shown to him was astounding, to say the least. "How... where did you get that?" 

"Now now, if I told you the Holy Beasts would be breathing down my neck again. I'll already be in more than enough trouble once all this is over with. You're clever enough to figure it out on your own." 

Ken grimaced. Trust Ryo to be infuriatingly cryptic when the Tamer felt the need to. But Earth's technology just wasn't that advanced, Ryo must have gotten it from elsewhere. Given that he had witnessed evidence of other dimensions during the BelialVandemon battle, this didn't surprise him. "I think I already have." 

Grinning at this, Ryo set the phials and bag in an empty box to the side. "Knew you would. I'll be heading out to take care of Jou's shopping list, would you like to contact anyone in the real world while I'm out?" 

"Contact? Isn't that a bit dangerous?" 

"Nah," Ryo reached over and pointed to something on the laptop's monitor. It was just a simple little icon of what looked to be a mirror. "To anyone trying to trace this connection, it'll look to be originating from over a hundred different areas of the Digital World. One would have to be very patient to find the real one. Not even Etemon or MugenDramon were able to track it down with their impressive networks. The computer has a microphone and speakers, so you can simulate a phone call if you like. There's also a digital camera that you can hook up to the computer and use to create a hologram if you feel like it. Anything else?" 

Ken simply shook his head, more bemused than bewildered by the sheer amount of technology at the Tamer's disposal. He watched as his former Jogress partner rose from the chair and dragged along the coffee mug. 

"Oh, one last thing. Savali's out spying for me. When he comes back he'll likely be in a bad mood and will be more than happy to take it out on you. Just ignore him and he sometimes gets bored and goes away." With that said, Ryo waved goodnight to him and slipped out of the room. 

The boy wasted no time once Ryo was out to use the computer to his advantage. The others were probably worried about him, and he hated it when people worried over someone like him. The first number he had the computer dial was the one to the Ichijouji apartment, and he spent the next few minutes reassuring his parents that he was safe and that they shouldn't concern themselves over him too much. Once that was taken care of to the best of his abilities, Ken dialed up a second number. 

Much to his surprise, Daisuke jumped on the phone the moment the first ring finished. Ken barely said one word of greeting before the goggle-boy began frantically ranting at him. 

"Man, Ken, where've you been?! We've been looking all over for you! And we can't find Takeru either. Hikari and Iori's worried sick about him, and I think Miyako's roped that Takenouchi chick into scouring Tokyo with her for both of you right now." 

"Daisuke, listen, Takeru and I are safe. We're probably in the safest place we can be that still has a breathable atmosph-" 

"That's nice," Daisuke cut in, obviously impatient. "But dude, where are you so I can see that for myself?" 

Ken sighed and began to massage his temples. He wanted to tell his friend, but there was so much at stake right now. "I can't tell you yet, there's someone who wants something I have and will go through any lengths to get it. That's why I'm in hiding." 

There was a pause at the other end of the line that lasted longer than he liked. Soon enough, however, he finally got a response out of Daisuke. "Shit, it's that jerk Demon, isn't it? Man, I knew we should have gone to hunt him down right after BelialVandemon. Why won't these fuckers just leave you alone?" 

He simply gave a noncommittal grunt at this and let Daisuke blow off steam for the moment. Once the goggle-boy's temper wound down, Daisuke asked how he was and if things were going alright. He didn't want to burden the other boy with his fears about the Dark Seed blooming, so he said nothing about it. He knew that his "I'm okay" was hardly something Daisuke would accept, but Daisuke did not press on the matter. Nevertheless, there was something else he wanted out of the way. 

"Daisuke? What would you think if I said I was... um... different than most other boys?" 

There was another pause, this one shorter. When Daisuke answered, the boy's voice was calmer, more serious than usual. "You're my best friend, Ken, I don't think that would matter to me. What's this about?" 

Suppressing the urge to fidget, Ken steeled himself and continued. "I think I'm gay." 

Once again to Ken's surprise, he heard a short laugh at the other end of the connection. "Oh man, is that all? I thought you were gonna say you like to dress in skirts or something. Then I'd have to turn you over to Miyako and Mimi." 

"Um, no. I'm not that different," the raven-haired boy muttered dourly. Miyako mentioned once how cute he would look in a dress and if he would mind if she and Mimi dolled him up, and he had yet to forgive her for that. He really didn't think he was _that_ effeminate. Was he? 

"Thought not," Daisuke responded, chuckling lightly as he did so. "I'm thinking you figured this out because you like someone like that. So, who's the lucky guy?" 

The urge to fidget became overwhelming, and Ken began tapping on the desk's surface as his nervousness increased. "Promise me you won't laugh?" 

"I promise. I'd do that pinky-swear thing too, but it's kinda hard doing that over the phone, y'know?" 

The words that followed were rushed. "It's Takeru. He likes me too, so we've kinda gotten together now." 

"Takeru," the goggle-boy's voice held a note of... what was it, satisfaction? Before Ken could ask about it, Daisuke continued. "How did I know this was coming? Man, I wish Miyako was here right now." 

"Why's that?" 

Daisuke's voice now sounded smug. "We had a running bet on how long it'd take you two to get together and start dating. I win!" 

Ken merely stared blankly at the computer's screen, too stunned to think much of anything coherent. Had the mutual attraction between him and Takeru really been that obvious? He was still fishing around for words when he heard something crash at the other end of the line. The panicked voices of Daisuke's family soon followed, and he could hear Jun yelling something about monsters. 

"Listen, I've gotta go and get XV-mon into action," his friend began frantically before he could so much as ask what was going on. "Been nice talking, but I'm getting a serious sense of deja vu with that MarineDevimon flailing around outside the apartment building. No matter what happens, don't come out of hiding. We'll take care of it." 

With that, Daisuke hung up. 

Moments after Ken heard the dialtone, he finally broke the connection. Why was a digimon, probably from the Demon Corps, attacking Odaiba when the Demon Corps was said to have something capable of hunting him down? There might be a possibility that they were hunting for hostages to draw him out, but the other Chosen would put up too much of a fight to place themselves in a position to be captured. Wouldn't they? 

Sighing, the Child of Kindness slumped back against the chair. The feeling of helplessness weighed heavily on him, and despair began to well up to drown him. He should be out in Odaiba helping Daisuke with the monsters, but it was too dangerous. Demon wanted the Dark Seed and probably knew that making an attack near where his friends lived might draw him out to surrender, but even if he were to surrender, he didn't have the energy anymore to walk around without needing to rest after an hour. He was so tired nowadays, so very tired. 

There are always casualties in war, sacrifices always had to be made. So be it. He was so damn tired. Soon it would be time to sleep. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Ajora: Um, the Millenniumon thing... You have to feel sorry for Ryo, really, as Millenniumon is the final boss in every game Ryo's been in so far ^^;, and he outright _taunts_ Ryo in the first few minutes of Tag Tamers. Poor boy, he has his own Devimon to haunt him. 


	6. Act II, Scene II

Götterdämmerung  
Act II, Scene II  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does. Duh.  
*I'm a sick puppy with a thing for blood. Wasn't this obvious in Codewalker? Here's hoping I wrote Daisuke well... 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Of all the places in Tokyo, the MarineDevimon just had to pick this particular place to do demolition work. It was two in the morning, why in the world did it decide to come and destroy things at this hour? Muttering dourly at the turn of events, Daisuke took a moment to survey the damage. One of the creature's tentacles crashed through a window and the wall it was set in, rousing everyone in the immediate area. Dammit, and he was having a perfectly nice conversation with his best friend too. Shit, why couldn't they all just leave Ken alone? 

Jun had yelled something about the monster ruining a perfectly good night, among other things that were far more uncouth, and was now practically bouncing off the walls with the stress of being unable to do anything about the situation. His parents were up now too, and anything they might have said about his making noise at such an hour was cut short when the full realization of just what was going on finally settled in. Just great, his mother was starting to panic now too. He'd have to figure out how to take care of this before going out to take care of the MarineDevimon. 

Then an idea came to him. Once Daisuke dug out his personal phone book, he tossed it at his sister. "Jun, call all the people with stars next to their names and tell them it's an emergency. Mom and Dad, if Hikari, Miyako, and Iori aren't available, could you drive to their apartments and wake them up for me? Chibimon and I have a monster to take care of." 

Too stunned by just what was going on, Jun didn't yell at him when he threw the little book at her, and his parents didn't question him. Pleased with that much at least, Daisuke turned to the small blue Chibimon that was now bouncing in anticipation. "Ready, little buddy?" 

"Ready, Dais'ke," Chibimon squeaked, bouncing even more. He evolved into V-mon first. Then, once he ran out the hole left by the large virus digimon, he evolved into XV-mon and went headlong into battle. 

Daisuke didn't spare a glance back into the now dubious safety of his apartment as he ran out the front door to get out of the apartment building at ground level. It would not do to become a street pizza by running out the hole in the wall as his partner digimon had done. 

Once clear of the building, Daisuke looked up to watch the battle. XV-mon was only a champion and MarineDevimon had to be an ultimate. As much as he didn't like the fact, he needed Silphymon and Ankylomon's aid as soon as possible. He would very much like to have Stingmon and Ken here too, but that would have been exactly what the enemy wanted. And in Daisuke's not-so-humble opinion, you never give the enemy what he wants. 

XV-mon's attacks did very little damage, but at least it kept the virus focusing on the battle at hand. Several times its tentacles had flailed around, however, and several times it did even more damage to the surrounding buildings. Daisuke cursed to himself as he just barely got out of the way of a rain of broken concrete. The calvary should have been here by now- 

As if coming from out of nowhere with an abruptness that stunned him, one of the beast's tentacles thrashed out and knocked him hard against a storefront. Within the span of a millisecond, the sheer force broke the shop's glass window and threw him onto a floor strewn with glass shards. His heavy cotton shirt and jeans protected him from most of the shards, but he now had cuts in places that had been exposed. The fiery pain that pranced along his nerves wasn't too bad though, and he had far more important things to worry about. 

Daisuke winced as he began to pull himself up from the floor. Alright, the surface cuts may not have hurt too much, but his ribs definitely felt bad. The moment he paused to take a breath and settle himself, however, he noticed a familiar looking female hand with the palm held upwards and under his face. 

"Need some help, Daisuke," the hand's owner asked, her voice laced with concern. 

Shaking his head, the goggle-boy simply declined. It was more out of disgust at himself for not being able to get on his feet fast enough than it was out of any kind of bravado. "Is Hikari nearby?" 

"Outside watching Silphymon and XV-mon beat the baddie into a pulp," the purple-haired girl answered as she withdrew her hand. "Iori's mother refused to wake him up, so we'll have to do without him." 

"Oh, Miyako? You now owe me one thousand yen. I just got a call from Ken that confirmed it." At this, any pain he was in was forgotten for the moment as he watched the expression on her face go from confusion, to surprise, to amusement. This was much more interesting than the nerves that were screaming at him. 

Despite what was going on outside, despite the mess they were in right now, a smirk settled on her features. "So that's why those two disappeared at the same time. Well darn, I guess I'll have to bring you the money later. Now let's go and find you some bandages for those cuts, shall we?" 

.~*~. 

There had been a time once when he considered himself above stealing, but that had been years ago. Change was a part of nature, and people always changed. That didn't mean that he'd have to like how he changed. The supplies and expensive equipment he made off with now occupied one of the buildings that had been abandoned by a Tamer who was smart enough to retire long ago. Its owner had been the medic of the group, someone they could all go to in the case of physical injuries. It was only fitting that the operation be carried out there. 

Personally, he would have much preferred to go to a professional, but moving Ken out of the Digital World at this stage might be hazardous and could trigger the sprouting sequence. He also could not bring an adult to the Digital World that hadn't originally been a Tamer or Chosen Child, the protective spheres of the Digital World wouldn't allow for it. So he was left with Kido Jou and the Swiss kids that had helped him with Ken's injuries a couple of years ago, and he didn't think that any of them had genuine professional experience. He was tempted to call Youji the Tamer medic for help, but then recalled that Youji ended up killing himself a couple of days after returning to a family who had refused to believe that the adult standing before them was the same kid that 'ran away' only a couple of years beforehand. 

It was for that reason that Akiyama Ryo never went back home, as much as it pained him to avoid it. His parents had always been distant, but he did care for them and doubted that they'd actually believe that he was the same kid that disappeared on them. That was the problem with retiring, he'd have to build a new life with a new identity on Earth all over again. 

Eh, why was he even thinking about this now? He had other things to do. The phial of blood that he had drawn from Ken while the boy was unconscious needed to be handed over to Jou and Koushiro. He was hoping Iori or one of the other kids with D-3s would escort them through a Digital Gate since he had yet to transform their digivices into D-3s. Briefly he wondered if it was wise to introduce the nanobots and their catalysts to the blood already, but then they needed as many spore-like cells as possible right now, and the bots would be busy picking them out and reproducing them. Also, Jou voiced worries about the Dark Seed's fibers, but he had mentioned that in the final stages of its growth, the Dark Seed's fibers would draw away from Ken's nervous tissue before blooming. The timing had to be precise, but it was all they had. He only knew this because one of the doctors who operated on Kageko made a tiny notation explaining that the Dark Seed's 'roots' were showing signs of withdrawing from the nervous tissue before Oikawa gave the go-ahead to rip it out. 

Ryo frowned to himself as he watched the populace of Shibuya drift along to attend to their own shallow duties, wondering once again why he had agreed to meet the two Chosen at the statue of Hachiko when he could have just gone to Odaiba and gotten it over with. Perhaps it was because of what the bronze dog represented, loyalty? As Hachiko had done less than a century ago, he too waited for Osamu's presence long after the boy's death. The day of Osamu's funeral was the day they were supposed to all get together and try out the latest flavor of ice cream. Ryo was the only one who showed up at the statue, and he waited for hours until he just went back home. He repeated that action again and again, waiting for someone who was never going to come back. Vaguely he wondered if he was going to do this until the day he died, if he didn't end up getting himself killed first. 

Eventually Jou showed up, sans a Koushiro. When asked about it, Jou glanced uneasily in the general direction of Odaiba. 

"A MarineDevimon showed up to wreak havoc early this morning. The new kids took care of it, but Motomiya's gotten a pretty bad beating since the attack was right outside his apartment complex. He'll be okay with a little rest though, it's nothing that'll put him in the hospital. Koushiro's with them now. Not that the armorless digimon we original kids have can do much damage against the Demon Corps in case they come back." The subtle hint of bitterness in Jou's voice at not being able to do much of anything was not lost on the Tamer, oddly enough. Maybe that was because he was too used to bitterness himself now. 

"Have they grabbed anyone as a hostage yet," the Tamer asked as he drew out the sealed phials he needed to hand to Jou. An attack on Earth made no sense unless Demon was making an attempt to grab bait to fish Ken out with. 

Jou looked down briefly at the oddly-colored phials of what might at one time have been blood, but the hemoglobin looked lighter than normal. "Not yet. Is the discoloration a symptom of the Dark Seed's progress?" 

"No, I've added the nanobots beforehand. The dilution you're seeing now is a sign of the bots' work in converting what they can to spore-like cells. The one whole-blood phial is already typed and there are extra bags of O-type blood for the operation once we get around to that. Everything you need is at the area I've isolated for this purpose, and the coordinates have been forwarded to Koushiro. Anything else?" 

Frowning, Jou shook his head. He did honestly want to help Ichijouji, but he did not want the pressure of being the one to operate. To hold someone else's life in his hands like that, to know that whether another person lived or died depended entirely on him... The depth of just what that meant was overwhelmingly depressing. "I trust I'll be having help? Hopefully?" 

"Two medical students from Switzerland. They're fairly fluent in English," Ryo offered helpfully. English was required learning in some schools in Japan, and he hoped that Jou's school was one of them. 

"Good, so we'll be trying to communicate in heavily accented English sprinkled with Latin medical terms," Jou countered drolly. "Sounds like an entertaining venture. But what about the energy situation? I don't know if anyone will volun-" 

"That'll be me. And don't worry, the transfer device is holed up with everything else." 

The Child of Faith blinked as 'Gennai's' words registered in his mind. Another problem with the Dark Seed was that as it approached the sprouting stage, it ate up more and more energy provided by its host. Since the operation had to be done at just the right time, someone else would have to be willing to offer his own life energy to keep Ichijouji stable during the process. This had its own problems, as anyone who would volunteer could run the risk of his own death. "Are you sure about this?" 

"Never been so sure in my life." A brief, almost serene smile flitted across the Tamer's face as he said this. He then glanced at the massive shop-front clock that had been there since he was a kid. Too much to do, not enough time. "I'll be heading off now to grovel at Qinglongmon's claws in hopes of getting another digital core to help you guys with the Demon Corps. Take care." 

Before the Tamer could disappear completely, Jou reached out to grab at the other's arm. There was something he had to say out of concern, and he just wouldn't let the man go back until he made his thoughts known. "Just a suggestion: get some sleep, you look like hell." 

This drew from Ryo a short, harried laugh. "That's probably because I've been in hell. And the next few days are going to be hell. Story of my life." 

With that, the Tamer dematerialized into thin air. 

.~*~. 

The humid, earthy scent that all unblemished lakes and rivers had was draped like a thin veil over everything in the house under Sanctuary Lake. It was a nice change from the dry yet woodsy odor of Akiyama's cottage. The place was quaint, but forefront in Takeru's mind was the question of just where Ken had run off to. When he asked both Leafmon and Patamon, neither could give him an exact answer. Apparently Ken had woken up before any of them did and had gone somewhere without telling anyone. Akiyama apparently wasn't around either. 

Takeru honestly couldn't tell whether he should be worried about that particular facet of the situation or not. He wasn't going to be a stupid twit and act jealous because of their friendship, but what if- No, no, Akiyama wouldn't take advantage of Ken, the Tamer just didn't look like that kind of person. 

It was a while before he finally located the den where he found Ken slumped in an old leather chair before a very complicated-looking computer system. There was music emitting from a CD player, but he payed it only brief attention. It was some sad piano and strings piece with a male vocal singing about unrequited love. Come to think of it, it was quite pretty. 

The Child of Hope sighed as he reached forward to brush away a lock of dark hair that had fallen over sleeping boy's eyes. Ken didn't deserve to have some evil sinister thing act as a parasite inside him, didn't deserve to be hunted down by everyone who wanted that parasite. Ken didn't deserve all the pain that life threw at him like it did. 

The desire to drive away that pain, at least for the moment, was one that grew stronger every time he was with Ken. Who knew he would grow fond of someone who had been so drenched in darkness that, for a while, it seemed as if there was nothing to draw up from that darkness. But there was, and Takeru found himself becoming attached to the shadows and the wounded boy that was shrouded within them. After all, darkness didn't necessarily have to be evil. 

Ken awoke as Takeru's touch turned into a caress, and for the moment no words were exchanged. They simply gazed into each other's eyes, so lost in the comfortable peace that neither felt the need for speech. It wasn't until the blond recalled Ken's recent fainting episode that the silence was broken. 

The concerned query was just barely audible above the muted ballad playing in the background, yet even if he wouldn't be able to hear it, Ken would still be able to understand their meaning. "Are you okay?" 

"Yes. Just tired, that's all. Lethargy seems to be a regular state of being for me lately," the boy replied. Absently he caught the fingers that were caressing his cheek, smirking slightly as that action drew a mock frown from Takeru. The smirk soon turned into a grin as the other boy made a halfhearted attempt to pull those fingers from his grasp. Regardless of the playful struggle, Ken brought those fingers to his lips and kissed them lightly before letting go. 

"You certainly don't seem very lethargic right now." Chuckling, Takeru wrapped his hands around Ken's wrists to draw the boy up from the chair. He frowned to himself as he noticed a small amount of shaking in Ken's hands as he did so, then instantly let go. Damn, he was going to have to be more careful about doing anything that might trigger Ken's memories of the rape. "Um, sorry about that..." 

After a simple shake of the head, Ken looked away. This shouldn't be happening, he shouldn't be afraid of Takeru of all people. Takeru would never hurt him like his doppelganger had, yet he had reacted the same way he would have if... No, he had to stop agonizing over what was already done. There was no point in it and it interfered with what should be a perfectly normal, intimate relationship. 

His first instinct the moment afterwards was to throw on his smirking, all-knowing public face and brush it all off, but Takeru would be able to see through that. Instead, he simply sighed and rose from the chair on his own. Why was it taking so much more of his energy now to do such a simple task than it used to? Somehow he didn't think he wanted to know the answer to that. "It's not your fault, it's mine for being a simpering idiot and dwelling on something that happened over a year ago." 

"No. No, no, no. I know something like that is going to leave scars, I should have remembered that beforehand," Takeru started. "You're handling it a lot better than most people would, I think. I just want to help you get over it, that's all. So will you please let me know if anything I do makes you uncomfortable?" 

Some sort of weight, he couldn't quite tell what it was, lifted from his chest at Takeru's words. Somehow it made him feel better about... something he couldn't define yet. Exactly what was it he'd done to get Takeru interested in him romantically? Surely he didn't deserve someone as sweet and compassionate as Takeru was to him. With the tiniest of smiles at that, he wrapped his hands around the other boy's waist to bring Takeru closer and gave a slight hug. "Thank you." 

"For what," the blond asked, curious about just what he had done to get that kind of response out of Ken. 

"For being so understanding. For being there for me. That's all..." As his voice trailed off, Ken secured his statement with a feather light kiss. Maybe things weren't so bad after all. 

.~*~. 

He was tired, so damn tired. There was simply no time to sleep anymore and it was getting to the point where even the caffeine pills weren't helping in any way. 

Ryo brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead as he surveyed the area outside Piccolomon's cloaked home. He had long since sent the winged, pink little creature over to Sanctuary Lake to make sure things were going well over there. Piccolomon had been quite agreeable about it after he had promised to send some new bodies over later for training. 'Training' being, of course, the cleaning of Piccolomon's coliseum. Almost a pity it hadn't seen any real action since the D-1 Tournament. 

Really, he should be going back to the lake to grab at least a couple of hours of sleep, but there was still so much to do. Transport Ken to Youji's house, figure out just where Demon was since he hadn't heard any rumors of Demon's current whereabouts. Figure out a way to explain just why he stole so much technology from other worlds this time around to aid in the operation. Well, at least the digital core problem was taken care of now, though he knew instinctively that Qinglongmon very much wanted to ask about his recent trips to other dimensions. 

Qinglongmon, of all the Holy Beasts, at least had some amount of sympathy for his plight. But just how much longer could he count on the holy dragon to back him up? There would be a time when they would all get sick of his transgressions on their laws, then what would happen? Would they stick a ring on him until he was no longer useful, like they had to Akira? Oh, they had finally released Akira once Moon=Millenniumon was defeated, but the incident still disturbed him. 

Why oh why wouldn't he settle for taking up Akiyama Fisheries in Hokkaido once his father would pass on? Sure it would be a boring life, but at least he'd have time to _sleep_. Sleep was a luxury he could rarely afford nowadays. 

With a disgusted grunt at all the mistakes he made in life, the Tamer turned to walk towards his mechanorimon. Then he paused as his eyes settled on a figure he had never seen before. It was a digimon, of that he was certain, but it was of an unknown subspecies. That was what worried him about it. 

The body was a snake's, sheathed in glittering black and indigo scales. The large rattling scales at the end of its tail looked to be grey with black edges. Then, from its back, sprouted three pairs of feathered wings of azure and lavender plumage. The head was that of a snake as well, yet it had a crest of spiky dark blue feathers. What was this, and why was the rising sense of danger nagging at the back of his mind about it? 

"Greetings," Ryo began, settling his voice into the polite yet commanding tone that all Tamers used when requesting information from an unknown digimon. "Please state your identity, level, and type." 

The feathered serpent regarded him cooly, glacial purple eyes glinting with something Ryo couldn't identify yet. After what seemed to be a few minutes, the serpent hissed its answer. "Mixcoatlmon, champion, virus. I submit to no human, Tamer. You best be on your way." 

Since he preferred the dismissal more than he'd prefer to get bitten by a snake in the Digital World of all places, Ryo gave a pleasant nod and resumed walking to his transportation. All seemed to be going well until he heard the flapping of wings close behind him. As he turned, he came face to face with the feathered serpent. 

Mixcoatlmon gave what might have been considered a reptilian grin as its black forked tongue flicked into the air several times. The sense of alarm Ryo felt only increased as the serpent's head and neck began undulating in what he thought might be amusement. It only got worse when he began to hear a rhythmic rattling. Snakes only rattle when they're threatening something and ready to strike. Oh shit... 

"You have the smell of the Other on you," hissed the serpent. The nictitating lid flickered over its eyes once before it continued. "Lord Demon will be pleased when I bring you to him." 

Ryo grimaced as the full force of the snake's words registered in his mind. So this was Demon's little pet, the one said to be capable of sniffing Ken out. It had to have been hatched only within the last year or so as well, or he would have heard about this one by now. Only very few things could create a brand new digimon, and now he was certain where this one had originated from. Oh the irony, he had never once considered that Demon would get his claws on the reformatted codewalker. Now if only he could find some hard place to beat his head against for being so stupid. "No offense, but I'm a busy Tamer. Would he like to make an appointment?" 

The large black snake began to coil around him, and were it possible for the reptile's face to display emotions, he was sure the thing was smirking and pleased with itself. He should have fought against it, but he was too exhausted to do much of anything. "You don't have a choice." 

With a long-suffering sigh, the Tamer succumbed to the exhaustion. Well, on the bright side he at least had the opportunity to get some sleep. Hopefully. And maybe Savali would catch wind of his capture and figure a way to spring him out. He wasn't going to hold his breath waiting for that to happen, though... 

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Ajora: Mixcoatl is the Aztec Cloud Serpent and hunting god. Unpleasant fellow, really. Sadly, this took me all of 5 minutes to dig up. And man, you people who were saying 'poor Ryo' before now, the next part is just going to be cruel. Seriously. Oh, and one thousand yen is roughly equal to $10. 


	7. Act II, Scene III

Götterdämmerung  
Act II, Scene III  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does. Guess what, I don't own a Sabotender ukelele either. Darn. I am also not in the cahoots with Square, Enix, or any other videogame company.   
*Rather steamy lime warning. Yes, that's right: lime. As in suggestions of sexual things happening or things that will lead to that end. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

It hurt. Every nerve in his body throbbed in pain, every tortured fiber made itself known. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move, now it hurt even to think. Demon had tried over and over to beat Ken's whereabouts from his hide, but he had offered nothing other than jokes and snide comments. This of course got him beaten even more. After what had seemed like an eternity of torture that had been cut short when he passed out, the evil digimon had him thrown into a dungeon and stalked off. It was but a brief respite, he was sure, but he embraced it nonetheless. 

There was the feeble hope that maybe he'd find a way out of here, but it didn't look likely. He couldn't find a loose stone or iron bar in the cell, nor was he able to goad one of the goblimon guards into either picking a fight with him or taking pity on him. And while the cell didn't stink as much as he expected it to, the odor of mold was still quite annoying. But the cot was somewhat clean, at least, and he could recall being in worse accommodations over his lifetime. 

Ryo sighed as he carefully laid himself out on the surface of the hard little cot and stared up at the ceiling. Oh, he had tried poking around up there too, but nothing would give way. Admittedly, the task would have been easier if they didn't confiscate his Swiss Army knife along with his D-3. The Swiss Army knife was actually one of the more useful gifts his parents gave him. Such a pity it was gone now. 

Such a pity he had been too tired to escape Mixcoatlmon's coils. Such a pity he couldn't help Ken at all while he was imprisoned in the heart of Demon's lair. Such a pity he was a miserable failure at everything he did. After all, even the people closest to him freely called him a 'poor idiot'. Funny that it didn't matter so much back then, but it depressed him now. 

Why couldn't Demon have had the grace to give him something to do in the cell instead of fester amidst his own inner devils? Hell, a book would be wonderful to have in here. Even a piece of chalk would be nice, he could draw out concept plans for a new residence somewhere. But no, all he had were his Gennai-persona robes and his crest which his captors deemed useless since he wasn't bonded to any digimon. 

One of the goblimon guards huffed to itself, drawing Ryo out of his misery. Of course, he always had his voice. It wasn't all that good a voice, really, and it hadn't been since it settled at about a mid-baritone range. He could still carry a tune regardless of the harshness in his singing voice, and maybe if he was lucky he could annoy the guards enough for them to want to come close enough for him to make a grab for the keys. It was worth a try. 

It was a slow, balladic piece, something he had been listening to more than usual lately. The song demanded for a piano solo, but he was just going to have to bypass that. "Swing the heartache, feel it inside out... When the wind cries, I'll say goodbye... Tried to learn, tried to find, to reach out for eternity... Where's the answer? Is this forever?" 

No response from them yet. Dammit. He'd have to be a little louder. "Like a river flowing to the sea... You'll be miles away, and I will know... I know I can deal with the pain. No reason to cry..." 

Still nothing? What, were they deaf? He should be annoying them by now! "Crucify my love, if my love is blind... Crucify my love, if it sets me free... Never know, never trust, that 'love should see a color'... Crucify my love, if it should be that way..." 

Ryo's voice trailed off as he heard several footsteps striding down the hallway. Curious as to who would be walking around in this area, the Tamer rose from the cot to get a better look at those who had stopped in front of his cell. There was sorcerymon, a bakumon that had probably been seduced over to the Demon Corps since a vaccine would rarely associate with virii at this level, and two veggiemon. They all gave what could be considered predatory grins as the cell door was opened at their command. 

.~*~. 

It had to be a nightmare. Everything had to be a nightmare, and he had finally woken up. Ryo uncurled himself from the fetal position he was sleeping in and stretched out on his back, soon made aware of the pajama pants he was wearing but nothing else was there. The bed was comfortable, soft, and warm. It seemed like it was always that way. Sunlight streamed through the filter of gauzy white curtains, unleashing a pale light into the room. His blue Apple laptop laid shut on a desk that was cluttered with post-it notes, books, game manuals, and other such paraphernalia. Somewhere under that pile he could barely see the plushy blue slime critter he had gotten back when he was a hardcore DragonQuest fan. Propped up against his bookshelf was that bizarre Sabotender ukelele Square released not very long ago and he bought it because it was just so weird that he had to have it. 

He was home. Not that room in the cottage he built in the Digital World, but _home_. Everything was as he had left it, right down to the red sweater he had haphazardly tossed on top of his desk chair and was too lazy to pick it up later. He stared up at the ceiling and wondered what happened, why was he back home? Had it all been a really bad dream, or was this the dream? 

Before his thoughts could go further, someone knocked at his bedroom door. That was odd, Mom usually came right in and complained that he needed to clean his room. His curiosity piqued, Ryo slipped out of bed and strode the short way across the room to open the door. 

Standing before the door was a vision that left Ryo attempting to pick his jaw up off the floor. Ken stood before him, not the child he knew as his best friend, but a Ken that was about fourteen now. Dressed in a nothing but a simple, oversized white shirt. By the almighty Atari system, and he thought Ken at _eleven_ was pretty. "Um. Ah... come in?" 

Ken bowed his head in acknowledgement and stepped through, not looking back until he heard Ryo close and lock the door behind them. With a smile, the boy stopped to stand by the bedside and gestured for Ryo to take a seat. 

Confounded at just what was going on and well aware of the decidedly sultry glances that Ken was shooting at him, Ryo did so. This was so bizarre, and there really wasn't a way he could think of describing the expression Ken wore in any way that wasn't crude. Were he in a secret on-line chatroom where he could be as frank as he damn well pleased, however, he would best define it as the "fuck me into the ground" look. Right now he was very much tempted to do so, too. But this was Ken, and he would never take advantage of his best friend like that. Right? 

While his mind was still in a whirlwind of emotions, surging hormones, and morals, Ken leaned down to brush slender fingers against his cheek and across lips that had gone dry in nervousness. Before he could so much as do anything about the direction things were going, his friend tilted his chin up and Ken brushed lips against his. Ryo's body began to ache with the need for further contact, something more. He'd been waiting so long now that his willpower crumbled. 

Just as he gathered the strength enough to play along with whatever Ken's game was and close what little distance was left between them, the other boy lightly pulled away. This left Ryo even more confused than he had been. 

"I got lost, Ryo," Ken murmured, seemingly oblivious to the turmoil he was putting Ryo through. 

Blinking at the unexpected statement, the Tamer paused for a bit before the words fully registered in his mind. "Lost?" 

A single slender finger slipped slowly down the Tamer's chest, so light was its progress that he almost didn't feel it. But the further it went, the more aware he was of it. "I was playing with Wormmon and got lost, so I can't find my way back. Where was Sanctuary again?" It finally stopped just a couple of centimeters below his navel, eliciting from him a small, almost inaudible whine. Why was Ken teasing him like this? 

"Y- you always knew where it was," he stammered, baffled that Ken of all people was asking something like that, and at this moment. Ken should be able to find the lake with no problem. 

Ken sighed, looking as if Ryo had just grievously insulted him. Before Ryo could say anything, though, Ken settled on the Tamer's lap and laid his head on Ryo's shoulder. "I forgot. You know the Dark Seed has that effect on me..." 

Tentatively Ryo wrapped his arms around the boy on his lap, all too aware of how... strange this all was. While the Ken he knew as a child would crawl into his lap when tired or when they were playing a multiplayer game like Gauntlet, there had been an innocence about the action that was obviously missing this time. Of course, back then the boy wasn't trying to seduce him and didn't know that rubbing up against him in the place Ken was now would get the attention of certain rebellious parts of his body that refused to heed logic. It was so odd. "But it's ingrained in you, you'll always know even with the Dark Seed's interference." 

His teeth gritted as he felt kisses on the sensitive flesh of his neck, which combined with the fact that Ken was rubbing up even more against his growing heat only worked to heighten his arousal. And yet somehow he couldn't bring himself to return the favor in kind. 

"All you have to do is tell me," the boy whispered as he paused in his kisses only to exhale hotly against the Tamer's ear. "Just tell me where Sanctuary Lake is and I'm all yours. Body, heart, and soul." 

Somewhere in the back of the mush that his mind had become at Ken's attentions, his conscience screamed at him. It sounded like Savali's voice, oddly enough. Everything was so wrong. Ken would never do anything like this to him. He couldn't bring himself to take advantage of the situation. Having sex with Ken, as pleasant as the mental image was, would be too much like screwing the little brother he never had. It would ruin everything. 

Then, slowly, everything became clear. Ken would never ask him for the location of Sanctuary Lake, it had been ingrained into the boy the day he began training Ken as a Tamer. Every Tamer had been trained to gravitate to Gennai's house like homing pigeons in times of need, it was for the best in case something happened that would affect their memories. Ken would never try to seduce the answer from him, all the boy would do was ask. This was not and never had been the little child who became his Jogress partner. 

With a sense of peace he hadn't felt since he developed a crush on his Jogress partner, Ryo pushed the boy away with gentle hands, only to plant a small kiss on the imposter's lips. "If you don't know then I can't tell you. Nice attempt, but you're not Ken." 

The imposer pulled away, touching those pale lips with fingers that now looked a little too thin. Dread rose in the creature's eyes as the imposter reverted into a bakemon and the illusion fell away. The ghost digimon barely glanced back at Demon before it was destroyed in a swipe of Demon's clawed hand. 

Despite the sheer fury in Demon's eyes at the fact that the plot hadn't worked, Ryo laughed more lightheartedly than he had in a very long time. "Man, striking at my weakest point. I didn't think you went that low, Demon. Hell, most slimeballs I know wouldn't even think about it. Congratulations." 

Demon's eyes narrowed as he lashed out in a grab for Ryo's neck. The Tamer just barely ducked out of the way and rolled off to the side. He pulled himself up off the ground but settled into a position that would allow him to escape again at any minute. "Before you go ripping my spine out, can we just talk for a bit? You haven't really given me much choice to do so." 

With a growl, Demon's eyes turned into mere slits. "You are trying my patience, human. Where is the Dark Seed?" 

"Wait. First, I'm assuming you want it to take out the Holy Beasts, right? I trust you have a back-up plan since there are four of them and one of you," Ryo got out in a rush, hoping against all odds that he could stall his own death as much as possible. "Even with the additional power of the Dark Seed you'd still be outmatched." 

"Fool, my first goal is the elimination of Zhuqiaomon. With the final mega-level virus out of the way, the other Holy Beasts would have no choice but to accept me in his place. Then it wouldn't be too hard to take them out one by one, now would it?" Ryo's mind reeled at the revelation. Zhuqiaomon was a virus? Why hadn't anyone ever told him? But then it did make sense, all the data types of the Digital World were probably represented among the Holy Beasts. Well, it explained Zhuqiaomon's attitude around him, anyway. 

Before the Tamer could get out of the way, Demon's clawed hand lashed out again, wrapping around his throat before his mind even registered what was going on. "It is a pity that the Holy Beasts' little lap dog won't be around to tell them of my plans. As entertaining as this has been, I'm sure Mixcoatlmon will find the boy with the true Dark Seed with or without your help. Just know this, Tamer: you had your chance to tell me everything and live, and you threw it away. I am through with you." With that, Demon's grip tightened. 

Somewhere beneath the pain of being strangled by someone significantly larger and stronger than him, beneath the frustration of having his weaknesses exploited as Demon had done, beneath the glaring reminder of his solitude, a moment of clarity bubbled up from the murky depths of his mind. He was not laying down his life in hopes that Ken would fill the gaping ache that had been left behind with the deaths of Osamu and Kageko. He was not doing so out of obligation to repair his past mistakes. He was not doing so out of any pretentious ideals that he was the only one who could. He was doing it out of loyalty to Ken. 

Somewhere in the darkness that cloaked the fortress of the Demon Corps, a single crest that had not been activated in years began to glow once again. 

.~*~. 

Many things annoyed the tsukaimon, but nothing was as annoying or as offensive to his pride as drudge work. It was all he did within the ranks of the Demon Corps, and it was all for the sake of listening in on potentially revealing conversations. After all, servants overheard more than any other spy could manage. 

To add insult to injury, he had also recently heard that Demon's pet snake dragged in a Tamer. This news brought much excitement to the janitorial staff and in turn made Savali sick with worry. There was only one Tamer left, it had to be Ryo. This was what he considered insulting: that he had gotten so attached to the Tamer that he was so worked up about the news. He had even turned to pacing as a way to smooth out his nerves. He considered himself better than that! Only pathetic little bonded digimon got attached to a human like that, and the idea that he had bonded to Ryo was preposterous. Completely and utterly preposterous. He was just doing spy work and playing messenger for Ryo because it was fun and he liked it. Right? 

Savali stopped midstride as he realized that he was echoing Ryo's mannerisms too. Ryo always paced in circles when distressed. With a grunt of disgust, the tsukaimon forced himself out of the pattern and tossed aside the dustrag he had been working with before hearing the news from a hyperactive gazimon. There had to be something he could do to get the Tamer out of here. 

Without a word to the supervisor, the purple digimon fluttered out of the room he had been ordered to clean. Everywhere he could, he asked discreet questions of the human and what had been done to Ryo. As far as he could tell, the Tamer sat through several interrogation sessions and spent them answering questions with jokes and confusing riddles. This made Demon very angry, and Demon began a torture session that had been cut short when the Tamer fainted in exhaustion, despite all that was being done to him. Then they threw the human into a cell while Demon was said to have figured out a much more devious way to extract what information he needed and employed the help of a strayed bakumon and one of the more intelligent bakemon. Savali could gather nothing else other than the location of the Tamer's items. Ryo would want those back, he was sure. 

Pleased with himself as usual, the tsukaimon darted down shadowed halls in search of the room that held Ryo's belongings. Somewhere along the way he began to feel an unusual tingling sensation. Far beyond him, something glowed and was infusing him with energy of the likes which he had never felt before. It carried with it a sense of danger. His human was in very big trouble, and the knowledge of just what was happening finally crashed down upon him. He had to protect Ryo. He had to save his human. And despite Ryo's warning that he was not to evolve past champion level, the tsukaimon embraced the energy surging through him and went through his evolution sequences faster than he had ever done before. 

He was a tsukaimon no longer, nor was he an igamon or tekkamon. A childish giggle escaped his wooden mouth as he stretched out his equally wooden limbs and inspected the white gloves gracing his hands. He was a pinocchimon, the first one seen since the fall of the Dark Masters. Pinocchimon... no, he still liked the sound of his name much better. After all, the person he had been named for was a messenger and spy too. Ryo had given him that name. Besides, people might confuse him with the Dark Master Pinocchimon and that would likely lead to unpleasant encounters. But then again, he did still have to get back at the boys that made his human sad the last time he had seen Ryo. 

Cackling with sheer joy at his newfound powers, Savali flew even faster towards the first chamber. He gleefully knocked out Demon's pet snake with his mallet, grabbed the Tamer's D-3 out of the bag, and tied the bag to the handle of his mallet. This was going to be fun! 

Savali had no problem at all with shoving hapless digimon out of the way, most of whom didn't see what hit them. He also had no problem playing whack-a-mole with anyone who dared challenged him. He was a mega, after all, the first mega virus ever seen in the Demon Corps who wasn't named Demon. The champions and ultimates were nothing to him. 

Pounding into the place where Demon held his human by the neck wasn't any problem either. His attack was too fast, and Demon barely turned before Savali stunned the other mega with a heavy whack of the mallet that had all his strength behind it. Dazed, Demon let Ryo fall, which was just enough for the pinocchimon to fly out and grab his human. As he sped out of the room, Savali tossed back the words "No one plays with my toys but me!" 

Within a few minutes the pinocchimon burst his way into a security room that had many convenient monitors for his perusal. Ryo may be unconscious now, but Savali knew enough of how to work a digivice. Smiling pleasantly at the scene he expected to see once he dragged his human back to Sanctuary Lake, the pinocchimon opened up a digital gate and began the long process of hopping between worlds in hopes of losing anyone who would dare follow him. 

.~*~. 

Takeru gave a content sigh as he stretched out his legs for a moment before curling them back up again, his head cushioned in Ken's lap and watching the videogame Ken was playing with only slight interest. He hadn't known Ken was into most videogames before, but it was something to do and he had no problems with it. After all, he was comfortably curled up with his head in Ken's lap and enjoying the proximity, wasn't he? 

The game wasn't all that interesting as something he'd want to play, it was too complicated and its emphasis was more on battle strategy and tactics than anything else. Well, it definitely had "Tactics" somewhere in the title. Right now Ken's troops were doing a good job of wiping the battlefield with the opponents. It was interesting to watch how fast Ken issued orders and efficiently wiped out the enemy troops. Even if, eventually, Ken's ruthlessness on the battlefield ended up sending his character's charisma and alignment plummeting. 

Although he would never voice these thoughts, Takeru now realized just how Ken managed to take over the Digital World as he did. This game was so similar, and Ken did say something about Ryo introducing him to it when he was nine years of age. The boy had taken to it like a fish to water, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. But all in all, this was infinitely preferable to the conquest of the Digital World. Ken seemed to be happy when he was lost in this game and this in turn made Takeru very happy. 

At that moment, a noise that wasn't caused by the videogame in front of them resounded from the front door. With an annoyed grumble at whomever decided to disturb their peace, the blond rose from Ken's lap and strode over to answer the door. Wasn't this place supposed to be used only when the Chosen had to go into hiding? Who would be knocking on the door of a hidden sanctuary? It couldn't be Akiyama and that pest of a tsukaimon, they would come and go as they pleased. 

The minute Takeru opened the door and recognized the face of the intruder, all color drained from his face. Terror began to well within and paralyze him as the memory of where he had last seen that face came to the fore. It had been years ago, but he still remembered as clearly as if it had happened the day before. Pinocchimon wearing that same crazed grin while toying with him... 

Ken peeled his eyes from the virtual battlefield when he noticed that Takeru was taking longer than the boy should have, and that all had gone quiet. Their digimon partners were still in the kitchen devouring everything they could get their paws on, so nothing dangerous had to be happening. He paused the game and rose from the folded futon to see just what was holding up Takeru. 

A pinocchimon stood grinning fiendishly in front of them, dragging behind him a very battered-looking Ryo. Pinocchimon, that was Savali's mega form, wasn't it? Hadn't Ryo forbidden Savali from achieving the mega level to prevent any confusion between Savali and the Dark Master? What would trigger Savali's evolution to this? Unless... 

The pinocchimon began giggling at them, then focused his attention on Takeru. Innocent the words may have been, but there was nothing innocent about their intent. "Hi, Takeru! Wanna play?" 

Panic rose within the Child of Hope as the pinocchimon's words registered in his mind. It was happening again, he had to get out of here. But not without Ken, he simply was not going to leave his friend here with that... that _thing_. As he stepped back, he lashed out to grab Ken's wrist in an attempt to run off with the other boy in tow. Despite his wish to be as far away from the marionette digimon as possible, Ken stayed still long enough to excuse them from the digimon's presence and then allowed himself to be dragged off to one of the furthest rooms in the house. 

Takeru began to shudder as Ken pulled the boy into his embrace. He wasn't sure exactly why Savali was triggering this kind of reaction from Takeru, but- Oh, damn, why didn't he remember until now? The first time he and Takeru actually got around to having a genuine conversation, the blond told him everything about the Dark Masters, particularly those who had taken special interest in tormenting the youngest of the group. After mentally kicking himself for not figuring it out beforehand, Ken hugged his friend reassuringly. 

"It's just Savali in his mega form, not the Dark Master," Ken murmured as he rubbed his friend's back in as comforting a manner as he could manage. "He may be a jerk, but he'll never hurt you. Ryo won't allow for it." 

As Ken continued in his attempt to soothe his friend, Takeru's shaking ever so slowly tapered off into nothingness. Despite this, Takeru still clung to him as if never wanting to let go. This he did not mind at all. It was nice being the one to comfort someone else for once, and he did so enjoy having Takeru in his arms regardless of the situation. 

Once the blond was calm enough to drag himself from Ken's arms, he rearranged his hat and straightened out his shirt in embarrassment. "Sorry about that." 

"Don't be, I'd probably do the same thing too," the Child of Kindness responded as he reached out and took Takeru's hand in his. "I'm going to check on Ryo, would you prefer to stay here until Savali goes back to his tsukaimon form?" 

Takeru shook his head, resolving not to let the memory torment him any more at the moment. "I'll go with you." 

Hand in hand the boys strode back into the common room. The door was now closed and Piccolomon, back from doing a patrol of the grounds, was now fussing around like he owned the place. Considering that Piccolomon was the first digimon to form a temporary bond to the original Gennai, that description probably wouldn't be very far off the mark. Leafmon and Tokomon huddled together off to the side, watching on in mild curiosity. They looked as if they had eaten a little too much and were likely to drift off into a nap at any minute. Savali, now back in his tsukaimon form, hovered over the unconscious form of the last true Tamer and looked to be positively bored now that his prank on Takeru was over with. 

Ryo had been laid out on the now-unfolded futon, looking for all the world like he had literally been through one of the hells of any given mythology. Yet somehow, under the bruises and scrapes, something was significantly different. The robes looked too large now and Ryo looked several years younger. But how could this be possible? 

"Ken, Takeru! Now that you're back, we'll just have to wait for Ryo to recover for a bit before we head off to the final destinationppi," Piccolomon squeaked, waving his spear around a bit in emphasis as he did so. 

The blond would have asked just where they were going, but Ken soon pulled away to kneel at his first Jogress partner's side to brush the stray lock of hair out of the way. "Savali, what happened and how did this age-reversal come about?" 

Savali took his own sweet time to make himself comfortable at Ryo's side before he deigned to answer the boy. "He got caught by Demon's pet snake and dragged to the Demon Corps. It's a shame Mixcoatlmon is practically useless for anything except biting others and hunting you down. Oh, he looks dangerous enough, but there's a lot of talk going around that he's only favored by Demon because of his hunting skills. Anyway, from what I could tell, they interrogated Ryo and did something or another that involved illusions since Demon was said to be using a bakumon and one of the more intelligent bakemon. I'm assuming it didn't work, since Ryo's crest glowed and I found him being strangled by Demon." 

Ken blinked, surprised at the revelation. Ryo's crest hadn't glowed since before Kageko's death. What could have triggered it now? And now that it did, that must have been why Savali was able to access his mega form. This had to mean that a temporary bond had formed between the Tamer and his messenger. Still, it didn't quite answer why Ryo now looked to be in his mid-teens. 

Piccolomon too seemed to be as stumped as he was. The pink creature leaned over Ryo to get a better look. "Perhaps the crest activation caused this too? How old was he when the crest ceased working, pi?" 

"Fourteen, I think," Ken offered as he pulled the crest and its tag out from under the now oversized black turtleneck. It was no longer dark as it had been, and he was beginning to wonder what had darkened it in the first place. Come to think of it, how _had_ he lost his own crest in the desert? "It was about the time of the D-1 Tournament, if not shortly afterwards." 

A hissing breath escaped Piccolomon as he stated this. Before Ken could ask why he got that kind of reaction, the little pink digimon yanked himself away from the futon and began to stride out to the door. "I'm going back on patrol. Be good, pi!" 

Silence settled over the room as the pink ball of a digimon wandered off and left them with more questions than answers. Takeru just looked confused about what had transpired, and Ken's mind reeled in an attempt to find out just what had happened. Was the crest's darkening something that accelerated Ryo's aging process? If that was the case, then its glowing probably reset Ryo's age back to the way it was before it became tarnished. If so, did Ryo still remember everything that happened after the crest darkened? Was it just his age that had been reset or was it his memory as well? 

What did Piccolomon know about this, and just what happened after D-1? With a sigh at the number of questions he wanted answers for, Ken rose from his friend's side. He was indeed worried about Ryo, but there just wasn't anything he could do at this moment until Ryo woke up. And, as was usual for him now, he was beginning to feel so tired. Soon enough the pain in the back of his neck started again, feeling as if someone was hammering a nail between his vertebrae. It was only getting worse until he passed out once again. 

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Ajora: Despite Ryo's attempts at being annoying, X Japan's "Crucify My Love" is a really pretty piece and very suitable giving what he's been going through so far in the fic. . 

I apologize for the Kenryo. That scene was bugging me for over a month now. Sorry to anyone who might have been offended by it. 

Final note: Piccolomon is better known as Piximon in the dub, but I am much more used to him and his usage of 'ppi' at the end of every other sentence in the Japanese version of the anime and Tag Tamers than I am with the dub, so please just grin and bear it ^^. 


	8. Act III, Scene I

Götterdämmerung  
Act III, Scene I  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does. And Quest/Atlus wants me to stop pestering them about rereleasing Tactics Ogre and making a playstation version of Ogre Battle 64, so I don't own that series either. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

_ Ryo sighed miserably as he chucked another pebble out the open glass door of the second floor sunroom that was home to Kageko's little forest of potted plants. The orders came as he knew they would. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on them to be as severe as they turned out to be. Ken was his best friend and what the Holy Beasts were asking him to do after the D-1 Tournament and all the unpleasantness was straightened out was nothing short of betrayal. _

Betrayal was necessary, Zhuqiaomon stated. With all the great evils of the Digital World neutralized, the population would become stagnant. Most monsters existed purely for battle, they needed a sense of purpose to be able to live in happiness. The boy with the Dark Seed might provide an interesting countermeasure for stagnation. After all, once the host was corrupted the Dark Seed would live in harmony with its host. The only problem with this was that the host could never be happy. Suffering was necessary, the Dark Seed couldn't bloom if it didn't have the positive attributes of its host to feed upon. 

They wanted to use Ken as a puppet, though Ryo didn't know exactly how the plan would be pulled off. As far as he could tell, they wanted to let the Seed corrupt his friend's soul, keep him miserable, and let whatever Ken would become to do as he wished in the Digital World. All for the sake of preventing stagnation. It made Ryo sick just thinking of it. 

Worse, Zhuqiaomon wanted him to be the one to take Ken's crest and tag, and send the boy back home with faulty memories to fester for awhile. Then they wanted him to give up V-mon and the others, wipe the little digimons' memories, and stick them under a digimental. Ryo was reminded that corruption was necessary to keep the Dark Seed from blooming. It was all the hope he had to keep his friend alive. 

Strange, that. When he had originally gone to the Holy Beasts in hopes that they could help him heal the boy when Ken was first hit with the Dark Seed, they gave him an elixir that would eliminate the progress of Ken's illness and pull him back to health. Ryo hadn't realized then that this was all it could do. So here he was, doing everything the Holy Beasts asked of him just to keep Ken alive. Even now he was only on a short break before the next level of the D-1 Tournament commenced. Three more levels, three more days until he would have to act on Their orders. 

If he did not comply, the Dark Seed would end up devouring Ken's soul and bloom into another Moon=Millenniumon. If he did, he would be betraying his only living friend. If he did not, Zhuqiaomon would stick a silver ring on him and make him do it anyway. 

He would have to do as the Holy Beasts wished, even if the mere thought was making him feel like shooting himself. But no, They'd end up finding someone else to do it instead. Oh, he was going to hate himself for this. 

Sighing at whatever had caused things to go so wrong, Ryo turned back to re-enter the house. This was supposed to be their house, but Kageko was dead and soon Ken would probably not come anymore. Past the sliding glass doors was a corridor that lead to the bathroom on one side, with Kageko's bedroom at the other side. This was flanked by his own bedroom, which was in turn followed by Ken's. No one went into Kageko's room anymore, and soon enough Ken's room wouldn't be used anymore either. He would be all alone without even V-mon for company. 

Quickly he strode past the rooms and down the stairs. Even without sparing a glance at the TV screen that had been dragged before the fireplace, he could tell what Ken was playing just by the background music. Tactics Ogre, wasn't it? Osamu would kill him if the elder Ichijouji knew he got Ken hooked on a strategy game. 

He remembered the day he had first introduced Ken to the game. It was innocent enough, of course, but that was the day after Osamu had kissed him. An experiment, the elder Ichijouji said, simply an experiment. Nothing personal. Yet that experiment was the clue that was finally beaten into his dense head and forced him to realize that Osamu might have had another motive for being so friendly around him when the boy refused to so much as talk to any lesser being. It was bewildering; and before he knew it, he had peeled himself from the other boy's arms, said something stupid about needing to be someplace else at the moment, and took off. 

That had to have been one of the most astronomically stupidest things he had ever done. The day afterwards he went back to visit and hopefully apologize for taking off like that. But Ken was the only one home and he ended up dragging out the playstation to show Ken his new game. All the while, once Ken had mastered the system with a speed even he was unable to match, he had rambled on about how complicated humans were. Amidst his chattering were rhetorical questions of just how Kageko was going to beat him should he tell her, what was he going to do about Osamu now that their friendship had taken an unexpected turn. Was Osamu mad at him for running away? Would it be wise to tell Kageko now since Kageko was the closest thing to a girlfriend he had? Why did things have to be so complicated? 

Ken hadn't offered much, of course. How could the boy have since this was all well beyond Ken's experience? Just a few questions, a smile, a nod, and reassurances that it couldn't be all that bad. But Ken at least listened, which was more than a lot of people would give him. Ken always listened to him, which was something he valued quite a bit. And what a stupid fool he had been, for the next day, before he could manage to apologize to Osamu in person, he had been told of Osamu's death. It had been too late, and he couldn't bring himself to go to the funeral. 

Ken was the one friend he had left, and the Holy Beasts wanted to use his last living friend for their own ends regardless of whether Ken wanted to do as they wished or not. He really did not want to lose the bond they had, and yet it was necessary to at least keep the boy alive long enough for him to find a solution that would eliminate the Dark Seed permanently. But he had a little time, at least. It would all happen only after the D-1 Tournament. 

Just a little time, but it was something. 

.~*~. 

There was something deliciously ironic about the fact that the Kaiser might have done more damage than the Holy Beasts expected once Oikawa decided to use someone already corrupted and easily bent to his whims. If they had known that Oikawa would develop the dark towers that presented such a threat to their powers, the Holy Beasts might not have been so quick to pick out Ken for their experiment in keeping the Digital World bristling with activity. Perhaps fate, if there was such a thing, thought it would be a grand idea to focus all the efforts of Oikawa, Vandemon, and the Holy Beasts upon the one child with a Dark Seed that still lived. Somehow Ryo doubted that the Holy Beasts realized how far out of porportion their experiment had gotten once the Vandemon-possessed Oikawa came upon the scene until the appearance of Black Wargreymon. Even then it wasn't until Qinglongmon had enough that the creature born of a hundred Dark Towers was confronted. 

As far as he was concerned, had Zhuqiaomon been the one to confront the artificial digimon, Black Wargreymon would have been toasted on the spot. The twists in the grand scheme of things were almost comical were they not so dire. 

Ryo opened his eyes slowly as he brushed those thoughts away. There were more immediate problems he had to take care of. Were he not already aching in several dozen places, he could have sworn Demon finally killed him off and sent him to whatever the Digital World version of an afterlife was before he would be configured as a codewalker. But here he was, curled up in a futon that had been hastily unfolded and with covers carefully draped over his body. Curled up before him was a bundle of purple and white fur. There was no way he could have gotten out of Demon's grasp unless Savali had gone in and rescued him after he had passed out. But that brought up the question: why? The little digimon owed him nothing, and was self-serving by nature. Surely the tsukaimon had another reason for doing so. Oh well, he could ask later. 

Carefully the Tamer rose from the mattress, mindful of the sleeping digimon. A cranky tsukaimon was one he did not want to deal with at this moment. He was soon made aware of Takeru kneeling in a corner with an unconscious Ken cradled in the blond's arms. Unconscious? Oh shit, he didn't have much time left at all. Frantically he brushed back the rebellious lock of hair that refused to stay with the rest of the spikes and approached the younger boys. 

Takeru looked up at him then, confusion and despair dulling those blue eyes that once shone with such promise and naivete. Ryo wondered faintly just how much Takeru actually cared for Ken, then brushed that unvoiced question aside. There would be time later. 

"We'll have to go to the operation site regardless of whether or not Ken's awake. I'll lead the way, I'll have Stingmon carry Ken, and I want you to bring up the rear so we won't have any nasty surprises hit us on the way over," Ryo stated, automatically taking charge as he did so. Takeru blinked, evidently thrown off by something he said. 

"Stingmon? I don't think he can evolve without Ken awake to trigger the sequence..." 

Smiling whimsically at this, Ryo dug out his D-3 and showed it to the younger boy, unaware of just how much baggier his robes had gotten. "There's one thing that makes me different from the rest of you. I'm a Tamer, I can handle any digimon I want to. Besides, Wormmon has experience with me and that tends to make the process easier. Any other questions?" 

The blond simply shook his head as he pulled Ken up with him. Ken was so much more lighter now than the boy used to be, and it made him sick with worry. From what Akiyama said, it didn't look that there was much time left at all. A command from the Tamer had all three digimon in the house bounding into the room. The only one that looked in any way displeased with the summons was Savali, and Takeru figured that the tsukaimon just wasn't pleased with anything unless it was making someone else miserable. Piccolomon was still on patrol from the looks of it, and wasn't likely to be joining them on the journey to the site Ryo picked out for the operation. 

They were told of what had to be done, of what to look out for. And for the time being, the Tamer had Stingmon answering to him. With Ken unable to do much of anything, that was the only choice they had. 

.~*~. 

"Daisuke, could you repeat that please?" 

Daisuke glanced up from the notebook he was absently flipping through, looking as nonchalant as he knew how. As if reminding a small child of something important, he repeated his statement. "Ken's in the Digital World and probably needs our help. I think we should go help him. Don't you?" 

"I thought that was what you said," Iori muttered softly as he drew his attention from Armadimon who was currently snoozing beside him. While he may have long since accepted Ichijouji into their ranks, he had never become as close to the former Kaiser as the others were. And certainly not as close as Takeru got now, if the snippets of delighted conversation passing from Daisuke to Miyako and back again were any indication. But Ichijouji was one of them now, and far be it for him to deny another Chosen Child assistance. While he had certain issues to work out concerning his morally-rigid upbringing and just what all this concerning Ken and Takeru's relationship meant to him, he was not going to let it bother him for the time being. As much as his upbringing said how wrong that kind of relationship was, they were his friends too and he wasn't going to let his morals get in the way of friendship again. "This is the Demon problem, isn't it?" 

"Bingo," Miyako interjected, making her trademark sign as she did so. "We're not sure where he and Takeru are, but we're pretty sure they might get themselves in trouble, especially with Demon out on the prowl. Holy Angemon and Stingmon won't be able to handle Demon on their own, and I would like to see our friends survive long enough for me to talk Ken into a wedding dress." 

Rolling his eyes at this, Daisuke shut the little notebook. "I really don't think Ken's interested in playing dress-up with you, Miyako. In fact, if you so much as speak of it again I think he'll run to Demon willingly." 

Miyako stuck her tongue out at Daisuke before countering. "You're no fun." This, of course, began a minor raspberry war that was only interrupted when Hikari cleared her throat. Given that she had been silent all throughout the meeting, this drew everyone's attention. 

"We can use our D-3s to search for them. We've done it before and we can certainly do it again." 

Oddly enough, of them all Hikari was the only one that didn't really have an opinion one way or another about Ken, Takeru, and their involvement with each other. So long as they were happy, she said, there was no point in bringing such attention to their relationship. This had been stated with the tone in her voice that suggested that she would not like to comment further. Miyako wondered briefly if Hikari had problems she wasn't ready to talk about yet, and made a mental note to address that as soon as possible once they were alone. 

"Sounds great," Daisuke suddenly enthused, pleased that Hikari was finally responding to something. He did like her as a friend, but the girl could be so withdrawn that it was hard to talk to her about much of anything. It was probably a good thing that his crush on her finally died out. "We should head out now, I guess. Miyako and Hikari, since you will probably be the only Jogress pair we have available, I'd like it if you keep your partners from expending too much energy. We'll probably need it if Demon decided to show his face. Will you be so kind as to do the honors, Miyako?" 

With a grin, the purple-haired girl brandished her D-3 and lined its screen up with the computer screen in Daisuke's room. "Digital gate, open!" 

.~*~. 

There were few things it enjoyed over the short course of its life. The way the wind brushed against its scales and feathers, the freedom of flight. But far above its love for flight was its love for the hunt. Someone that seemed like another version of it was somewhere out there, and its liege counted upon it to bring the Other to him. This was all the meaning of its existence, and it simply assumed that once its purpose was done with, Lord Demon would destroy it. Not because it was in any way powerful, nor because it may have annoyed Lord Demon once. No, it was simply because of what Lord Demon said it once was. It would be destroyed because Lord Demon said it was once human, and humans were detested by those digimon that made up the Demon Corps. 

Human... how could a simple, low-power virus like it have been human? It didn't look like it could have been of the same species as the Tamer it brought before its liege. And yet it was drawn to the scent of the human that Lord Demon wanted. Blood calls to blood, Lord Demon said, and that was that. It asked no questions because no questions came up. This simply was the way things were. No curiosity, no regrets, no emotions, just acceptance. It was never capable of even the limited emotions that most digimon had. All it cared for was flight and the hunt. 

Mixcoatlmon spiralled amidst the sheltering clouds, heedless of the chilly ice crystals that pelted against its scales and feathers. It was close, it knew this instinctively. Even as far above as it was, it could sense its own blood singing for the Other. 

Eyes far sharper than those of a true serpent focused upon the convoy many meters below it. The Tamer was settled in a mechanorimon, with that traitor tsukaimon clinging to the mechanorimon's arms. The Other could be seen riding in the arms of a stingmon, and these two were followed closely behind by another human on a pegasumon. They were all flying over a mountain range. It hissed to itself as it tried to calculate just how he was going to stun the insectoid digimon and snatch its prey. The stingmon was well-protected and could be fast if necessary, so it was just going to have to be faster. 

With a breath drawn and held, Mixcoatlmon hovered for a second before folding its wings tightly against its body. It dove and embraced gravity's pull, relishing the sheer energy of the act. Within seconds it slapped its tail against the stingmon's head, coiled the lower part of its body around the Other to drag the human with it as it opened its wings, and pulled away before the convoy could gather their wits. 

The flight afterwards was unimpressive once Mixcoatlmon lost those who were following it within the clouds. It had its prey at last. Lord Demon would be pleased with it and its purpose would be fulfilled. Thus, it too was pleased. 

It could feel the Other squirming weakly in its coils. Such fragile things humans were. The merest squeeze could crush the Other's bones and kill him. But that would make Lord Demon angry, so it was not going to do such a thing. Mixcoatlmon pulled out of the clouds briefly to verify its location. Yes, it would be there soon. Just a little further. 

Soon enough it arrived at the hollowed-out skeleton of a cone volcano that had long ago died out. This was the home of the Demon Corps, where all those who served Demon gathered. This was all the home the feathered serpent had ever known. It glided easily past the guards, only pausing to be allowed into the heart of Demon's lair. 

With what could have been a satisfied toss of its crest feathers, Mixcoatlmon uncoiled and settled the human before Demon's throne. With its duty done, the feathered serpent fluttered aside and waited for new commands. 

Ken glanced up sluggishly at the evil digimon. One second he had been sleeping peacefully with dreams of flying, and the next he had been snatched away and dragged into what felt like a pool of ice crystals with the coils of a snake around his torso. And here he was, sitting before Demon. He was too weak now to do anything more than sit, and was too listless to understand what Demon was saying to him. Any energy he may have had was gone now. Where did it all go? 

He merely watched as Demon rose from the throne and picked him up off the floor. All he wanted to do was sleep for an eternity. Why wouldn't people just let him sleep? Demon was saying something else he couldn't be bothered to understand, and then... 

Something rose up within him, vibrant with the energy he had lost. It bade him to sleep, and sleep he did. It would take care of the danger that Demon presented, all it needed was the use of his body. He was too tired to protest. 

Within the body of the Child of Kindness, triggered by the threat to its host's life, something began to awaken. It was only partially aware, yet this was just enough. 

The Digital World had not seen it in years, yet it came back. This was simply the way of things, Millenniumon always came back. It was too early for his resurrection, but he would have his own body soon enough. There was a threat to be taken care of, however, and it was best to eliminate it before it could eliminate him. 

Ken's eyes glowed the color of that which had not walked the expanse of the Digital World in years: an unholy, bloodthirsty red. He yanked himself from Demon's grasp and gave a grin that was not his own as he floated in a way no true human could manage. For Ken was asleep, and Moon=Millenniumon was half-awakened by the presense of another mega-level virus. The voice that shaped his words was not his own, yet both host and parasite harbored the desire to be that which was uttered. 

"I am the harbinger of the twilight of the gods." 

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Ajora: And thus the whole reason for this fic's title ^_^. 


	9. Act III, Scene II

Götterdämmerung  
Act III, Scene II  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei does. Nyah. 

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The feathered serpent struck so fast that Takeru could do nothing but watch as it snatched Ken away with the speed of a falcon. It had only lasted a heartbeat, but that heartbeat stretched out for a painful eternity. They hadn't even considered the possibility of an air-strike, and it left him stunned. 

Too much had been going on recently for him to assess his own emotions and any theories he might have formed about them had to be shuffled away for later introspection. Yet it had pained him more than he thought it would when Ken was so quickly and effortlessly snatched away. Why? 

Hardly a minute had passed before Stingmon gathered his wits and darted after the flying snake. Without so much as a word, Pegasumon sensed Takeru's urgency and followed closely behind. The mechanorimon Akiyama piloted, however, was slower and soon trailed far behind. 

Wind battered at him as Pegasumon spared no comfort in flight. One particularly strong gust sent his hat flying away, probably lost forever. He didn't care about it anymore, all he cared about was getting Ken back. 

The snake flew into the clouds with Stingmon and Pegasumon following suit. The plunge into the clouds was like having shaved ice dumped on him, though the chill failed to distract him from the pursuit. Visibility was severely limited, and he dreaded that they had lost the serpent and Ken. No, they couldn't lose Ken, not now... 

Exasperated at how futile it was to maneuver in the clouds, Pegasumon soon dropped out of the one they were in and glanced around for any signs of the black snake. Only Stingmon was in the immediate area, and looked to be as baffled about where the snake had gone as he was. They all glanced around, hoping against all odds that something would come along and tell them where to go. 

Minutes crawled by as if they were hours, until at last the Tamer's mechanorimon joined the three, escorted by Savali in his pinocchimon form. Despite the dire situation they were in, the marionette digimon was grinning in sheer delight. Takeru found it quite annoying that Savali was enjoying all the stress they were going through. 

"The snake is heading for Demon's fortress," Ryo's called out, his voice mechanically amplified so it could be heard despite the distance between him and the others. "Savali knows the way, so we'll have to follow him. Be prepared for any potential attacks." 

Takeru waved his acknowledgement, then clung to his mount's mane as the pinocchimon darted by and Pegasumon followed its lead. He did not like having a pinocchimon anywhere near him, but he'd have to put up with it. At least for now. 

The surface of the Digital World appeared so small when they were this high in the sky, minute features looking as if they were merely painted upon an artist's canvas with very thin brushes. Eventually the plains and forests gave way to a coastline so littered with volcanic ash and boulders of cooled lava that it looked grey and lifeless. Presiding over it was the caldera of a volcano long dead. It was this volcano, this beach, this was the home of the Demon Corps. 

.~*~. 

Miyako was worried. Not because of their situation, they could handle themselves well enough. Not because Daisuke told her about Ken's orientation, for she had long since gotten over her initial crush on him. Even after Ken joined them, she could no longer view him as the perfect mate. He was simply too unstable and emotionally fragile, and she would have to constantly act as if she was tiptoeing around eggshells just to avoid hurting him. Miyako was simply too blunt a person to pull that off for very long without getting annoyed. No, she just viewed him as a friend now. 

She was as worried about what would happen to him as she would have been were it any other friend. Daisuke had said that Demon was after Ken, and that was all they knew. But what could they do? Without Ken there would be no ImperialDramon; and without ImperialDramon, they had no hope of confronting Demon and surviving the encounter. The outlook was very, very bleak. Even Iori had mentioned, in that silently unassuming way of his, that it might as well be a kamikaze strike. But they all had come to trust Daisuke now, and if Daisuke was going to rescue Ken, then some way or another he'd do it. 

Yet nothing showed up on the tracking programs in their digivices and they had no idea where to start looking. They asked around for any clues that could help, and they had still gotten nothing. It was starting to look like a fool's errand. 

The D-terminal in her pocket beeped once, twice, three times before she pulled it out and thumbed open the screen. There was a message from Gennai, and she would have just ignored it if she hadn't noticed the urgency code set in the subject header. Her eyes widened in astonishment as she read the message in full. Gennai was giving them coordinates to where Ken was held. 

Looking up, she noticed that the others had gotten the same message. A flash of silent communication passed between them all as they rose as one and went to prepare their digimon partners for the long flight to Demon's lair. 

.~*~. 

Sighing, Ryo closed his laptop and returned his concentration to the flight ahead. He still had an ace up his sleeve, even now that Demon was aware that Savali could access mega level. It was a long shot, certainly, and he wasn't sure that it could be pulled off. But all he could do now was hope that it would work. Demon might be too powerful for the pinocchimon or any of the Jogress pairs, but maybe if there were two mega digimon facing Demon, they'd have a chance. He just hoped the second set of Japanese Chosen Children would arrive in time. 

Savali, now his partner for however long the temporary bond would last, blasted his way through the Demon Corps, with Stingmon and Pegasumon close behind. Whatever doubts Ryo once had about where Savali's loyalties laid had been washed away in under the span of six hours. He still did not understand just why the digimon saved him or why Savali was throwing aside any other allegiances he may have had, but Ryo was grateful for it nonetheless. 

The sight he witnessed once they were in Demon's own lair was something he hoped never to see. 

Ken was floating several feet above the floor, with nothing acting to keep the boy mid-air. Eyes that were once a blue-violet color that struck him as quite pretty now glowed red. Red... Moon=Millenniumon had those same crimson eyes. Ryo fought down the rising terror of seeing Millenniumon in any form once again, just barely aware of the strangled noise coming from Takeru's direction and the whimper from Stingmon. And, finally, Demon glared back at the boy, ignoring their intrusion. 

Ryo had barely gathered his wits before the creature that was once Ken lashed out with an attack he hadn't seen in years. Moon=Millenniumon's Death Crystal attack crackled as plasma between Ken's fingers, then shot out the boy's extended left hand, formed into a massive crystalline spear, and impacted with full force against Demon's shoulder. The viral lord staggered under the blow, but did not fall. The crystal jutted out from Demon's back, penetrating one of the wings as well. 

Demon's eyes narrowed as he began to lash out with his own attack. He had barely started his Flame Inferno before Moon=Millenniumon struck again. The crystal spear had just barely missed as Demon darted out of its way just in time, shattering against the wall behind him. The boy that hosted Moon=Millenniumon was too small a target, however, and Demon's Flame Inferno ended up taking out the wall behind the boy as Ken dropped a couple of feet and resumed his original position once the attack flashed by. 

As the battle raged, Takeru and Pegasumon trotted to Ryo's side, both mount and rider carrying with them an air of uncertainty. "Should we step in," Takeru asked, glancing warily at the two opponents. "If one of Demon's attacks hit-" 

"We can't do anything yet," whispered the Tamer as he brushed back the stray lock of hair in trepidation. They were all worried and he knew it, but they all counted on him to know the answer to everything. Dammit, sometimes he really hated being 'Gennai'. He couldn't show anything that could be considered a weakness because he had to keep the kids' hopes up. 

They watched anxiously as two viral mega digimon attacked each other and ducked out of the way of each other's attacks. Takeru's fingers twisted in Pegasumon's mane as he fought down the urge to dart in and pull Ken away from this place, whether Ken was still himself or not. Triggered by his own despair and fear of losing Ken right before his eyes, his stomach felt as if lead pellets had been poured into it. He had to do something. Anything... 

Finally, as if he had been waiting for the opportunity to catch his opponent while exhausted, Moon=Millenniumon lashed out for the last time with a Dimension Destroyer. Time seemed to stop as a fog of darkness swirled around Demon, then settled as it solidified and took on the appearance of deep space. Demon looked to have disappeared within the portal, lost forever amidst the stars. But, after what looked to be an eternity, the void closed in upon itself, leaving Demon frozen in place. Even the blood that dripped from three crystal spears were trapped in halted time. 

Ken/Moon=Millenniumon turned away to float towards an exit left by a stray Flame Inferno. Those digimon that had been drawn to the chaos soon scattered the moment they noticed that the intruder was facing them. Ryo reacted quicker than Takeru could get up the courage to stand between whatever Ken was now and the exit hole, and had the mechanorimon darting before Ken. The boy paused as his path was blocked by a mechanorimon and its pilot. 

"Get out of my way," the boy ground out, pinning Ryo under a heated glare. 

Blanching at the red glow in Ken's eyes, the Tamer swallowed uncomfortably. Well, all he could do now was to go through this. "Ken, I know you're still there. Where are you going?" 

"The sun shall set upon the gods' reign," two voices stated in an uncanny similarity to a Jogress-united digimon's voice. And yet Ryo could hear how Moon=Millenniumon's bass just slightly overruled Ken's tenor. "Then shall come the twilight." 

"You can't take out the Holy Beasts," Ryo shot out, despite his secret desire for retribution of any kind. "The balance of the Digital World depends upon the Holy Beasts. Without them it will collapse. Ken, I know you wouldn't want that!" 

"They use our kind, Tamer. You of all people should want to see the twilight of the gods." Only Ken spoke this time, his tone was that of one who would rather be asleep. 

Ryo took a breath and steeled himself. There were too many variables in this, he wasn't even sure what would happen now. But he had to try. "So you would prefer to sacrifice an entire world rather than the handful of humans who never belonged in this world in the first place? I guess you were beyond redemption after all, Herr Kaiser. Nothing is ever gained from a crusade, but I guess you never really understood that either." He turned, despite the sickly coiling in his gut at what he had done. "The Ken I adored doesn't exist anymore. Come, Takeru, let's get out of here." 

Takeru started, looking stunned at what Ryo had just said. His jaw worked a bit as his eyes darted between the Tamer and Ken, trying to process just what was going on. Glancing quickly over to Stingmon, he noted that the digimon looked just as distressed as he himself probably did, and he could hear Pegasumon clap a hoof against the floor in nervousness. What was he to do? 

For what must have been the first time in awhile, the Child of Hope prayed fervently, silently, that he wasn't going to lose Ken to whatever it was that now had his friend floating midair like that. Not now, not ever. He needed Ken, because no one else could understand his own darkness. No one else would be there to pick him up if he fell from grace. No one else fully understood what he went through in his childhood quite like Ken could. And he needed someone who understood more than anything else. 

Much to Takeru's surprise, Ken seemed to shudder violently, looking for all the world like a marionette whose puppeteer was shaking its strings. The blond kneed Pegasumon into flight as he noticed that Ken had now become limp and was beginning to fall. Pegasumon barely managed to situate himself under the falling boy in time for Takeru to catch Ken. 

Both Ken and Moon=Millenniumon must have run out of energy, Ryo thought to himself as he watched Pegasumon jolt slightly under the force of gravity. At least for now there wasn't enough energy for the seed to fully bloom yet. He glanced over to the pinocchimon, who was 'playing' with Mixcoatlmon. Mixcoatlmon had been trying to get away before Savali decided to pick it out as a victim. 

Shaking his head as Savali manipulated the snake into tying itself into a knot, the Tamer glanced back at Demon. Droplets of blood that had been frozen in time began to fall slowly, their pace quickening the further they got from Demon's body. Soon enough the Dimension Destroyer's power would fade out, then he would need the other kids here to finish up where Moon=Millenniumon left off. Savali just wouldn't be powerful enough to handle Demon on his own, even with the viral lord's weakened state. 

Once the mechanorimon settled on the ground, Ryo hopped out and nearly tripped as he did so. Somehow his robes seemed bulkier than usual, and he couldn't quite figure out why. He'd have to check into that later. Before his thoughts could go further, Raidramon barged in with Iori, Daisuke, and Armadimon. Following closely was Aquilamon with Hikari, Miyako, and Tailmon. About damn time, Ryo muttered silently as he threw on the strictly-business mask of the Gennai persona. 

He heard a choking gasp from Hikari as her eyes darted to Savali, who was now twisting the snake into the mathematical symbol for infinity. Tailmon, recognizing a pinocchimon, jumped from Aquilamon's back and hissed as she settled into a position that would allow her to strike at any minute. Oh crap... 

"Stop, Tailmon," he commanded, using the inflection in his voice that she would have to acknowledge. Tailmon had been one of many digimon he trained and did as she was told. "The pinocchimon is with me and can be considered an ally. Savali, stop playing with the snake and come here." 

The pinocchimon openly sulked as he withdrew the threads that allowed him to control the snake and trotted over to Ryo's side. He cocked his head as he watched the display of odd emotions across one of the girls' face and, figuring he might as well milk this for what it was worth, gave a huge grin. She blanched quite nicely too. 

"Dude, what happened to Demon," Daisuke exclaimed, eyes fixated on the viral lord. Ryo, smothering his irrational dislike for the goggle boy for the moment, turned his attention back to Demon. The blood fell at a normal pace now, and Demon was breathing heavily. 

Demon was also watching them as they were watching him. 

With a nod from the Tamer, Savali hefted his mallet and giggled as he rushed forward to attack. The viral lord's eyes narrowed as he lashed out with a counterattack that easily knocked the pinocchimon backwards. Savali was not one to so easily give up, however, and was soon back on his feet and lauched another attack. 

The Tamer returned his attention to the other kids, all of whom were staring at him oddly. Shrugging off the curiosity, Ryo focused on the auburn-haired goggle-boy, all misgivings forgotten for the moment. "We need our digimon to Jogress." 

"Jogress? But Gennai..." Daisuke blinked as he trailed off, honestly confused about whatever was going on. A person can only have one Jogress partner, right? And, well, Ken was his Jogress partner. Unfortunately, Ken was also unconscious in Takeru's arms from the looks of it. "Do you even have a partner digimon?" 

The person known as 'Gennai' turned slightly to call out to Stingmon. Grateful for the opportunity to be useful, Stingmon darted over to the Tamer's side. "My status doesn't allow me a permanent partner, but for the moment Stingmon shall be answering to me." 

Daisuke's eyes darted from the funny guy in robes that now looked too big and Ken, then back again. Well, this was Gennai, right? Everyone trusted Gennai and Gennai was supposed to know everything. So if Gennai could order Stingmon around without question and believed that they could Jogress, then he supposed it was worth a shot. 

They needed to protect Ken, and to do that they needed to eliminate Demon. While the Dark Seed was still there, Demon would always be a threat. To get rid of that threat, they would need their digimon to Jogress evolve. 

Raidramon reverted to V-mon before evolving to XV-mon, and while Daisuke and Ryo were united in a common cause, XV-mon united with Stingmon to become Paildramon. Paildramon was soon by Silphymon and the pinocchimon's side, his attacks adding to the damage inflicted on Demon. Yet it still wasn't enough, and Silphymon took the full force of a Flame Inferno. This sent the androgynous digimon out of the fighting, and urged by the Tamer and Daisuke, Paildramon evolved to Imperialdramon. 

Now faced with two mega-level digimon, Demon began to unleash all the power he could muster in an attempt to eliminate the more powerful of the two. Imperialdramon was bulkier and could not move out of the way fast enough, but the pinocchimon was quick to see the oncoming threat and darted in to strike the viral lord off balance. With a hefty swing of a mallet that was heavier than it looked, Savali struck hard against the back of Demon's knees. Imperialdramon took the opportunity to let out his Mega Death attack. Demon finally fell, and once his head collided with the floor, the viral lord disintegrated into a flurry of digital dust. 

A silence fell over the remaining beings once Demon disappeared. The last of the great evils of the Digital World was gone and no one quite knew what to say. Pegasumon settled into a gentle walk that would not jar the two humans on his back, only stopping once he joined the group gathering around Daisuke and the Tamer. Takeru held Ken in his embrace and looked quite distressed, unwilling to turn his attention from the boy. 

"I don't think we'll make it in time," the blond whispered, peeling his eyes from Ken to glance at the Tamer. "It's too far away." 

"Don't talk like that! We can make it if we try! Imperialdramon, are you up for the trip," asked Daisuke. He was torn between darting over to Ken's side to make sure his friend was safe, and leaving this up to Takeru. But he could at least make sure they got to wherever Gennai wanted them to be as soon as possible. 

The two voices united as one uttered their affirmative. 'Gennai', thankful that his ace had played out, requested that the other digimon devolve into smaller forms so that they could all fit into Imperialdramon's cockpit. Once the Tamer sent the orders to his mechanorimon to fly off to the operation site on its own, he turned back to the giant dragon and allowed himself and his tsukaimon to be teleported into its cockpit. He only spared a quick glance at the two boys huddled into a corner with a patamon flying possessively over them, making sure Ken was at least still breathing. 

Just a little more time. All he needed was a little more time. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Ajora: One more part and the epilogue, and this part was very hard for me to write... *falls over and dies from stress* 


	10. Act III, Scene III

Götterdämmerung  
Act III, Scene III  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does. Enix owns DragonQuest, and Square owns Final Fantasy VIII and the gunblades that came from that. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Koushiro watched them from the bar that separated the kitchen from the medical room. The abandoned house had been kept unusually sterile considering how long it had been without occupants. Jou and the Swiss kids were preparing the area for the long list of medical procedures they would have to do. Koushiro had not asked where Akiyama managed to get the laminectomy table, the surgical instruments, or that strange device that was said to be able to transfer measured amounts of energy from one person to the other. Off to the side, soaking in a vat of saline solution, were the two replacement vertebrae and intervertebral discs. He assumed that what Akiyama had done to get these things was probably illegal, so he did not ask about it. 

There was a sudden noise as the front door flew open and Akiyama trotted in with an unconscious Ichijouji, followed closely by a very distressed Takeru and the rest of the second group of Chosen who were in turn followed by their digimon partners. Jou started as Akiyama burst into the operation area and was soon overwhelmed by his assistants. 

Frantic at the fact that this was going far faster than he liked, Jou tried to get things under control to the best of his abilities. "But we need to get a X-ray, and an ECG, and-" 

"We don't have time," interjected the Tamer as he laid the unconscious boy face-down on the laminectomy table. "I gave you the files from Kageko's operation. Use what information you learned from there." 

Jou sighed as he watched the Swiss kids prepare the intravenous units and anesthesia, then turned to Akiyama. Adelheid, the mousy blonde girl, was to be primarily in charge of the IVs and anesthesia. Marti, the black-haired boy with glasses thicker than his own, was to handle minor incisions and suture once he was done with the main laminectomy. This of course left him in charge of actually pulling out the lamina, remove the Dark Seed, and replace the infected vertebrae. Hopefully he would be able to pull it off. 

After Akiyama settled into the alien device, Jou stood by the Tamer's side and hooked up what looked to be electrodes on various parts of Akiyama's body. The action was repeated by Adelheid on Ichijouji, and the wires were all connected to the strange device that was required to transfer energy from one patient to the other. There would be no point in asking whether or not the Tamer was sure he wanted to do this. He hoped that nothing would go wrong. 

With both Akiyama and Ichijouji hooked up to the alien device, Jou returned to the laminectomy table to watch as Marti dampened Ichijouji's hair with a saline solution to get it out of the way, and they draped a towel over the boy's head in case any strands should get in their way while they worked. 

As Marti swabbed the back of Ichijouji's neck with disinfectant, Jou fought to subdue his rising sense of panic. This would be the first time he would ever operate on a living human. Sure, there had been the rats in various anatomy classes, but this was substantially different. Marti's scalpel parted the skin easily, exposing living flesh to his view. Tissue was then separated from the work area by several retractors and left the infected bones for him to remove. 

Jou sighed miserably behind his mask as he glanced down at the vertebrae that had been warped by the Dark Seed. Normal laminectomy procedures were fairly simple, all things considered. But then, normal laminectomy procedures never took into account that the lamina would fuse with the rest of that particular vertebra. The bones didn't even look like normal healthy bones did, they were yellow with what he assumed was calculus... although why calculus would build up on the spine of all places was beyond him. 

The infected vertebrae were too far gone and quite brittle now. Removing what should have been the lamina was now a process of chipping gingerly away at the bone and calcium salt concretion with the use of a suction tube and sterile saline liquid to rinse it out. The process was tedious, and more than once he had to step back to stretch out cramped muscles. But eventually he managed to bare the spinal cord and the Dark Seed that wove into it. 

Now that the Dark Seed was in its advance stage, it no longer looked like an astrocytoma. The majority of its roots had withdrawn and wrapped around itself in a kind of cocoon. Its tone was dark grey, a much darker color than the spinal cord in which it had dwelt, and it throbbed sluggishly in time with Ichijouji's heart. If Ichijouji had not been put under the knife as immediately as he had been, there would be no hope left. 

Jou called out for the ring and Moria forceps and soon found one pressed into each palm by Marti and Adelheid. With the ring forceps he held the Dark Seed above the spinal cord so he could pull out each tiny strand that was still buried in the nervous tissue. This was proving to be just as tedious as it was to remove what should have been the lamina. Each strand had to be pulled out gently with the delicate Moria forceps. If he used too much force the tendrils might break, and he did not want to leave any trace of this thing in the Ichijouji boy. 

Eventually, after having pulled out what he could be certain was at least fifty tiny tendrils, Jou sighed in relief as he called out for the jar of formaldehyde and, once it was brought to his side, dropped the Dark Seed into it. The jar was closed and put to the side as the operation continued. 

Removing the infected vertebrae and their fibrous discs was still a delicate procedure, but remove them he did. With them out of the way, one of the Swiss kids brought him the vat that contained the nanotech-built parts. Soon enough he had the originals removed so that they could be replaced. The process was slow, delicate so that he would not inadvertently damage the spinal cord. Eventually, however, it was done and everything set in place. Jou once again irrigated the area with a sterile saline solution and suctioned away the liquid only to squirt in a small syringe full of the spore-like cells and wet-form nanobots Akiyama said were needed to repair the gaps left by the removal of the Dark Seed's tendrils. Now that everything was done, Jou left the suturing to Marti. 

Once he scrubbed down and removed the operation garments, Jou made his way to the waiting area outside that doubled as a living room. Koushiro was soon by his side. 

"Good job, doctor," the red-haired boy stated, patting Jou's back as he did so. "I don't think anyone could have done better." 

Blinking in mild surprise at the gentle tone in Koushiro's voice, Jou glanced at his friend. "There are plenty of people with far more experience who could have done a better job." 

"Nonsense. Now Jou, you did very well. Don't worry about it anymore." The shorter of the two guided his friend to a couch that was soon abandoned by Gomamon and Tentomon. Jou merely gazed curiously at him as he wandered off to the kitchen to retrieve a couple of glasses of oolong tea that he hoped would settle Jou's nerves. 

"Don't you ever drink anything besides oolong tea," Jou asked before he allowed himself a sip of the offered tea. He soon let Gomamon bounce into his lap once he was certain the action wouldn't spill the liquid and make him end up having to clean up the mess. 

Koushiro grunted a neutral answer as he downed his own glass of tea and went back for more. 

.~*~. 

All things considered, Daisuke was in pretty high spirits. The Swiss kids eventually came out and said (in what Iori called "heavily German-accented English") that Ken and that Gennai guy were both stable, and from the looks of things the operation went without a hitch. Demon was gone for good. Takeru had been a nervous wreck, but the others hovered over the blond and offered what support they could. Their digimon partners were all playing amongst themselves save for the tsukaimon and Wormmon, and those two were united in their agitation over the two humans in the medical room. But everything went better than anyone expected. 

Daisuke hummed an old folksong as he added seasoning to the pot of boiling water and ramen noodles. Some time ago he had noticed that he actually liked fixing ramen and other noodle-based dishes. They were fairly simple and cooking was a useful skill. He very much liked to be considered useful, so the moment everyone was settled he decided to take it upon himself to fix a decent meal. 

Once he had fixed enough food for everyone, nineteen in all since Ken and Gennai were both asleep and would be that way for several hours, Daisuke dug around for clean bowls. There were just enough soup bowls for the humans, but the digimon would have to deal with plates. Oh well, he was sure they wouldn't mind. As he filled the bowls and plates with ramen noodles, Miyako came in to check on her cupcakes. He hadn't exactly been the only one making use of the kitchen. 

"So, how's Takeru holding up?" 

Miyako looked up from the oven window and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "Well, he's still worried sick, but Hikari and Iori think he'll be fine once Ken wakes up." 

"That's good at least," Daisuke stated as he added thin white slices of fishrolls to each plate or bowl of ramen. "I don't think I've ever seen him that distressed before." 

"Yeah... I have to admit, I'm starting to feel what Hikari's been going through," the girl stated as she leaned back against the counter and watched him chop up a batch of slender green onions. 

Daisuke paused mid-slice as he tried to figure out what Miyako was implying. Then, thinking to himself that women were completely unreadable anyway, he continued his work. "So, what's that?" 

"She's envious of them. It makes sense, y'know. Takeru's her best friend and he's suddenly got himself a boyfriend and hasn't been thinking about her at all. Meanwhile, she's never had someone she's cared about with that kind of intensity and she's wondering if she'll ever find someone who could draw that kind of emotions from her. I think." Miyako's brow furrowed slightly. It had taken a bit of work to get Hikari to admit to feeling envy. She liked Hikari as a friend, but it was so frustrating when her friend closed up as often as Hikari did. "I don't blame her, really. Not after that oh so romantic image we ran into the moment we barged in Demon's lair." 

Blinking, Daisuke glanced back at Miyako. "What romantic image?" 

Miyako winked at him and wagged her index finger under his nose. "Why, the one of the shining knight on a noble horse, with the beautiful maiden in his arms, of course." 

"Oh, of course." Daisuke turned back to sprinkling the chopped onions over his dishes, rolling his eyes once his back was turned to Miyako. "Whatever you say." 

After quickly sticking her tongue out at Daisuke in response to the condescending tone in his voice, Miyako walked over to the kitchen's exit. "You don't have a romantic bone in your body, do you?" 

"Proud of it too!" 

Grinning, Miyako reached out to tousle his hair. "At least you admit to it. Need any help taking the food out?" 

Daisuke grumbled under his breath as he reached up to straighten out the spikes of his hair. "Yeah. Oh, Miyako, thanks for bringing all the food on such short notice." 

"Well, someone has to feed these people," quipped the purple-haired girl as she picked up a couple of bowls before heading out. "And I needed to get a new roll of film for Hikari's camera. She wasn't too happy when I abducted it to get a picture of that adorably romantic scene." 

Sighing, Daisuke simply picked up two filled dishes and followed Miyako's lead. He really did not understand chicks. 

.~*~. 

Despite Daisuke's growing expertise in the realm of culinary arts, Takeru simply hadn't felt like eating anything. Even Miyako's lemon cream cupcakes failed to entice him. All he cared about right now was whether or not Ken would wake up and be able to recover. Jou and the Swiss kids had reassured him that there was nothing to worry about, but he still worried constantly over Ken and maintained a bedside vigil. 

Ken and Akiyama were no longer hooked up to the alien device, yet they shared the same bed and Ken still had several IV tubes poking into his flesh. Savali, after being snuggled up against by Wormmon, perched himself on the Tamer's stomach and glared acidly at the other digimon. Wormmon, who had attempted to make friends with the other virus, ended up being clawed and was now sulking at Ken's side. Patamon simply curled up in Takeru's lap, faintly worried about his own partner's attachment to Ken. 

Thoughts swirled like leaves in a wind-stirred pond as recent events played over and over again in Takeru's mind. It had hurt so much to see Ken taken away like that, and then during the operation he had been a frayed bundle of nerves ready to go off at any minute. He had gotten so attached to the other boy that he needed Ken around as much as possible. Akiyama had failed to protect Ken, and look what had happened. Takeru felt that, if no one else was going to do a decent job of keeping Ken safe from harm, he would have to try the best he could. This should not be allowed to happen again. 

Never, ever again. 

Something moved then, derailing his train of thought. Looking up, he noticed that Akiyama had awakened and the tsukaimon fluttered off to allow the Tamer to rise. The energy transfer hadn't gone without impact, and there was now a streak of white amidst the Tamer's mop of wild brown hair. On someone who looked to be in his teens, the effect was quite unnerving. 

"Everything went well, I trust," Akiyama asked, glancing down at Ken in obvious concern. 

"Yeah, Jou and the others said that the operation went without problems. They just want to keep Ken around here until they remove the stitches. You're free to come and go if you want, though." 

Ryo sighed as he attempted to straighten out his robes. He'd have to get a new robe before going in to face the Holy Beasts' judgement. "Well, at least it's all over now. Take good care of Ken for me, will ya?" 

Everyone in the room except for the tsukaimon stared at him for a few moments, unwilling to take his words for what they were. Finally, Takeru spoke once again. 

"Wait, you're not coming back?" 

"Takeru, I've breached far too many of my employers' laws and I know far too much about the Digital World. I'm not going to be able to get out of this without severe punishment of some type or another. That's why you'll just have to take care of Ken for me." Ryo paused as he glanced at Wormmon. "And that means both of you." 

With that, the Tamer and his digimon bade them farewell and left the room. 

.~*~. 

The majority of the kids at Youji's left once Ken returned to consciousness and they had all managed to wish him a speedy recovery. The only people that stayed behind were Jou, Koushiro, Takeru, and their digimon partners. At least, that was the report Takeru had been so kind as to send him. 

Ryo's mechanorimon sped through the air. It had been a surprisingly loyal thing, always doing as it was asked and always returning to him whenever he left it behind. It was sentient but had a very simple mentality. He would miss it. 

The silent trio eventually approached the mountains from which the Holy Beasts deigned to meet with him. Savali had said nothing since he woke up, making Ryo wonder if there was something seriously wrong with the tsukaimon. Savali simply never went a day without teasing him about something or another. If he were to survive this, he would have to ask Savali about that and risk being clawed up as a result. 

Eventually he dropped off at the outcrop of rock on which he awaited the Holy Beasts' arrival. The wait was boring, and he almost wished that he hadn't asked Savali to take the mechanorimon out to a more secluded area. Time passed by with the sluggishness of flowing syrup, making him wish he had at least brought a Gameboy to fidget with. 

And then the mists parted as all four Holy Beasts convened in the valley beyond his outcrop. Qinglongmon the blue dragon, Zhuqiaomon the red bird, Xuanwumon the serpent-tortoise, and Baihumon the white tiger. All in one place. Shit, he was in deeper trouble than he thought. 

He sighed and sat down to await whatever sentence they would give him. Well, it couldn't be too bad, could it? They must at least still remember all the times he did what they asked of him. That counted for something didn't it? 

At long last, after what seemed like an eternity, the Holy Beasts retreated, leaving only Qinglongmon to deal with him. The huge blue dragon soon went to rise up before him. 

"Akiyama Ryo, for the crimes of technological theft, exposing the technology of one world to the denizens of another, and the destruction of a prominent member of the government system, you are hereby sentenced to exile from the Digital World for an indefinite period of time. You are given six hours to gather any personal belongings and leave." 

Exile... the word echoed in Ryo's mind, dredging up several depressing emotions he didn't think he would feel. But he was relieved that the sentence wasn't nearly as severe as it could have been. There was something that bothered him, however, and he had to ask. "Qinglongmon? I'd hate to jinx myself, but this was a lot lighter than I expected." 

The holy dragon paused, as if thinking about whether or not to tell him. Before Ryo considered giving up and going off to pack, Qinglongmon answered. "There had been a minor debate over whether or to let you get away with your crimes or whether to kill you off to protect our secrets. Exile was the one decision we could all support." 

"Oh. Thanks," the Tamer muttered somewhat sheepishly. Qinglongmon must have been the only one willing to let him get away with breaking so many laws, and to show such support for him even after what he had done was likely to diffuse the rest of the Holy Beasts' respect for the dragon. "One last question?" 

"Feel free to ask, Tamer." 

With another sigh, Ryo brushed back the stray lock of hair in anxiety. "Why punish me for taking out Demon?" 

"It is simply a matter of politics. Demon was all that controlled the more chaotic of the evil digimon. Without him to lord over them, there is no way to keep them in check." The dragon then paused to give him time to absorb this. "You do understand, don't you?" 

"Demon was planning to eliminate you and the other Holy Beasts, what else could I have done," asked Ryo, half in annoyance and half out of honest curiosity. 

The dragon looked down upon him in an almost fatherly manner, which was quite odd considering who it came from. "It does not matter now. Take this opportunity to go back home and rebuild old relationships. I understand you were looking forward to a vacation someday, correct?" 

"A vacation is one thing, but my parents would never accept me back into the house, I look too old to be their son now." 

"Have you looked into a mirror recently, Tamer," Qinglongmon asked with the tiniest shadow of amusement in his voice. "If not, I suggest you do so before you leave." 

As Ryo mulled over the dragon's words, Qinglongmon began to disappear into the clouds. He hadn't actually looked into a mirror since before his capture by Demon, he simply didn't have enough time for grooming. Maybe he should do as Qinglongmon suggested and see if he could figure out why the Chosen Children had been staring at him oddly since then. 

Oh well, time to pack and see what he would do with the rest of his life. 

.~*~. 

Man this was a boring wait, Daisuke thought to himself as he peered once again at the area that should have been occupied by a cottage of some sort. Ken gave him the coordinates and everything, but there just didn't look to be anything _there_. But there was indeed something there, and running headlong into it ended up giving him a sore face. When he got out his D-terminal and e-mailed Ken, he was told to wait for Ryo to return. Whoever Ryo was. 

V-mon looked to be just as bored as he was, and he wondered if he shouldn't just go back and tell Ken to fetch whatever the boy needed himself. Hell, he could just leave the old yellow bag here anyway, this place was so remote that no one would steal it. 

However, the noise of machinery soon disturbed the stifling silence and attracted Daisuke's attention. It was Gennai's mechanorimon. Hey, maybe Gennai would let him in to get what Ken wanted and he could go back and say everything was taken care of. Perfect! 

Daisuke waited until Gennai dismounted from the mechanorimon before approaching. "Hey Gennai, Ken wants me to pick some things up for him. Oh, and-" Daisuke paused as he held up an old yellow bag. "He wants me to give this to Ryo." 

The Tamer blinked both at the unexpected intrusion and the odd nature of Daisuke's words. "Oh, he didn't tell you that I'm Ryo, did he?" 

"Oh dude, really? I didn't know that," Daisuke exclaimed. Why didn't people tell him these things?! Did they think he could read minds or something? Geesh! "So, um, here's your bag. Ken wants me to grab a couple of books and some other stuff if that's okay with you." 

Ryo plucked the bag from Daisuke's hands, momentarily thrown off by the boy's energy. Something inside it sloshed around as if in a jar, and he'd have to look at it later. "Oh, yeah. His room is the first one next to the stairs on the second floor. Don't take too long." With that, the Tamer pulled out a ring that had more keychains than actual keys and flipped through the random bits of metal and plastic until he found the rectangle of black plastic that served to decloak and unlock the cottage. With a push of a tiny button, the illusion of nothingness fell away. 

"Whoa, you're a gamer too," the goggle boy asked as he watched the Tamer put the keychains back in order and moved to return them to a pocket. Most normal people did not have gunblades or Dragon Quest slimes as keychains. "Hey, have you played the latest DQ yet?" 

"Haven't had the time," Ryo muttered as he opened the door and deactivated the cottage's defenses. The gaming fanboy part of him wanted to brag about how easy the game was and how the older games were better, the more practical part reminded him that he only had a few hours left before he would become homeless. 

Leaving Daisuke to fend for himself and the two digimon to raid the kitchen, Ryo trotted up to the laundry room that had a decent-sized table set aside for minor handiwork. He pulled out the jar of formaldehyde and opened its lid to take out the floating Dark Seed with a pair of tongs dredged up from a dusty toolbox. This was going to be quite satisfactory. 

Once he found an old rag and a X-acto knife that was still quite sharp, Ryo set the rag on his worktable and placed the Dark Seed in the middle. The knife sliced cleanly through its cocoon, dissecting it down the middle. Then he quartered it, and halved those quarters, repeating the process until the Dark Seed was nothing but globs of matter as small as he could make them. With that done he emptied the contents of the rag into a beaker and settled that onto a metal frame. And the moment he found a match, lit it, and tossed it into the beaker, he took the time to relax and let the happy little glow finally wash over him. It was over. Sure this seed may have caused his exile from the Digital World, but it was now all over. 

As his eyes roamed the room, he realized that he would actually miss this place. He had built it thinking he would be here forever, and now he had to leave. Such a pity. He hoped, at least, that Ken would take care of it now that he would no longer be able to do so. 

Then his eyes caught on a mirror that had been put up for some odd reason long ago... he couldn't quite remember why unless he had been using it to show Ken a few science experiments. Oddly enough, the person gazing back at him was no longer in his mid-twenties as he thought he was. He was the age he would have been back on Earth now, roughly seventeen or so. 

Oshiro, the teacher he looked so similar to that the other Tamers used to joke about how he was really Oshiro's long-lost son, told him once that the crests served another purpose for those humans who dwelt in the Digital World for over a couple of years. The crests could, if kept free of even the slightest corruption, be able to synchronize its owner's biological clock with Earthtime instead of the time in the Digital World. If corrupted this aspect of the crest's power simply would not come into play and the crest's owner would age in time with the Digital World. 

All the Tamers' crests had eventually been corrupted by something or another, though it was hardly their fault since they were all human and prone to the vices that all humans had. But usually when this happened their crests would never shine again. He had merely been the exception to the rule, he supposed. As far as he knew, his willingness to die for Ken's sake was what reversed the corruption and allowed the crest's hidden power to kick in. 

The image of a teenaged boy who had aged far beyond his years, with only a streak of white hair to show for it, gazed back at him. He still had some ugly bruises and a scar on his cheek, yes, but... But he could finally go back home. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Ajora: The tea thing comes from the movie Bokura no Wargame. Koushiro seemed to have quite the addiction for oolong tea ^^. Also, the game Daisuke was playing before Jun pulled the plug on him in one episode is indeed a Dragon Quest game (sadly, I recognize the DQ mainstay slimes anywhere, even in a split second before Daisuke's TV screen goes blank). 


	11. Finale

Götterdämmerung  
Finale  
-by Ajora Fravashi

*Disclaimer - I don't own Digimon. Toei/Bandai does. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Takeru simply watched as three digimon played amongst themselves. Nahualmon, Mixcoatlmon's rookie form, had taken to following Ken around until the raven-haired boy eventually gave in and adopted the former codewalker as a secondary digimon. Oh, he and Ken had talked about the dubious wisdom of doing such a thing, but the snake simply did not have the emotional capacity to resent them for Demon's demise or to even turn against them. Ken's reasoning for taking in the snake was because it had nowhere else to go and was constantly drawn to him. Such a nice gesture was what he expected from the Child of Kindness. 

The digimon played in the grass of the valleys of Hokkaido. Ken had set out to find Ryo since Ryo hadn't been responding to e-mails, and he hadn't wanted to let Ken go out alone. Not that his boyfriend could really be considered alone while being trailed by two digimon. And to be honest, the back woods of Hokkaido that the Akiyamas said that Ryo was camping out in were hardly any danger. Still, he wanted to be with Ken. That was all. 

It had been several months now since the operation, several months now since the abduction that forced him to realize that he cared a lot more for Ken than he thought he would. He hadn't said anything about it yet, and was simply content with their relationship at the moment. Since then their friends had supported their relationship, even if a few of those friends did have moral problems with it. He did not worry too much about those few, however, as they made no attempts to preach to him or Ken and had simply wished to continue being friends. In a world where same-sex partners were still unusual, that was better than he expected. 

Ken soon settled by his side on a fallen log and Takeru wasted no time in catching his boyfriend's hand and giving it a light squeeze. There was so much more he wished he could do with Ken, but that had to wait until the day Ken no longer feared such intimacy. He could wait, though. He had all the time in the world. 

"No luck in finding him," Takeru asked as he laced his fingers between Ken's. There wasn't any real worry in his boyfriend's face, which suggested that Ryo could handle himself in the wilderness. That was good then, he didn't want Ken to worry. 

Shaking his head at that, Ken simply waited until Takeru let go of his hand only to drape one around his waist. "He's probably out fishing. I haven't checked the river yet." 

Takeru leaned back to lay in the grass, hoping Ken would take the invitation for what it was. "I don't suppose you'll be going out to check right now, are you?" 

"No, not right now," Ken smirked down at the other boy. "I believe there's something else that requires my immediate attention." 

"Like what," Takeru asked, feigning innocence as he did so. Ken knew his game well enough, however, and leaned over him with an equally false scowl. Soon enough the games were shuffled away and there was nothing false about what happened soon after. 

With a genuine smile of affection for his boyfriend, Ken leaned down to take Takeru's lips in a kiss, not at all surprised when the blond's arms wrapped around his back to draw him even closer. Really, he enjoyed sessions like these far too much. 

Takeru held his Ken close, relishing the physical contact as much as he enjoyed the kiss they shared. The kisses were gentle, almost as if he was afraid to hurt Ken and vice versa, but he needed them nonetheless. All he needed was Ken and everything Ken could give him. That was all that mattered. 

They were so lost in each other's attentions that they did not notice the passage of time, and it wasn't until they heard a throat clear that Ken pulled off of Takeru and looked up, blushing slightly when he recognized the intruder. 

"Keep focusing on that and you'll never notice an oncoming wolf or bear attack until it's too late," a familiar voice quipped dryly. Takeru looked up from his place in the grass to recognize Ryo with a fishing pole slung over a shoulder, a brace of various fish in one hand, and Savali fluttering close behind with a bucket of clean water. The bruises Ryo acquired from Demon had long since faded out, yet the streak of white hair from the alien device was still there. 

Ken flustered slightly at this. He certainly hadn't expected anyone to discover them, not all the way out here. Unfortunately, Ryo was beginning to develop a knack for walking in on them. At least this spared him the trip to the river. "We need to talk." 

"Has to be important if you've tracked me down all the way out here," stated the older youth as he began to resume his hike. "Tell me on the way back to camp." 

With a silent glance at Takeru to make sure that the blond understood that he was going to take Ryo up on the suggestion, Ken soon followed the retired Tamer into the woods. It did not surprise him when he heard the voices of three rookie digimon pause as Takeru told them that they were moving on. 

"Took a digital gate to the nearest computer, I presume?" 

"Your parents didn't look too unnerved when we hopped out of your computer. I'm taking it you've told them about everything," Ken asked, particularly curious about how the Akiyamas handled knowledge of the Digital World. The last he heard about Toshio and Kumi Akiyama, they were not the most imaginative of people. 

"Well, how else could he have explained me," countered the tsukaimon that fluttered at Ryo's side. "Creatures like me aren't native to the area." 

The raven-haired boy took a moment to glance at the tsukaimon. "Why _did_ you follow Ryo into exile, anyway?" 

Huffing in disgust at the question, Savali turned up what he had for a nose and deigned to reply. "It was starting to get boring without anyone to play with." Once that was said, the tsukaimon darted ahead of them. 

"That's his excuse," Ryo muttered with a hint of amusement in his voice. "You'll never get him to admit that he's become far too attached to his 'plaything', or that he's trying to lay low because a few of Demon's leftover minions are out for his head." 

"Ah." Ken simply let conversation drop for a bit once they entered the camp area and Ryo laid the brace of fish out on a boulder. He merely watched as his first Jogress partner pulled out one of the blades of the Swiss Army knife and began to gut one fish at a time. 

Takeru, thankfully, knew he had to talk to Ryo privately and had settled with their digimon far enough away to be out of earshot. He was quite grateful that he didn't seem to need to explain himself to Takeru. 

"Will V-mon ever remember who he used to be," Ken asked as he watched the blade slice through a fish's pale underbelly. If he could remember what had happened back then, he was curious as to why V-mon didn't seem to recall anything. As his words were voiced, he noticed that the blade's progress became more ragged. 

"The memory wipe was complete the moment I had to stick him under that digimental. I didn't _want_ to do it, you know." The blade was then pulled away only to fall with a chop that severed the fish's head. "I didn't want to do any of it." 

Ken paused in consideration as he mulled over the other questions. Asking if Ryo resented himself for what had to be done was pointless, Ken knew the answer already. Asking if he had struggled when the memory blocks were set in place would only be cruel. Asking why it was done would be pointless since he had inherited Ryo's estate in the Digital World along with all the documentation and personal notes that had been hidden in Ryo's desk. 

Recently, however, he had stumbled upon a few very well-hidden files. There had been few written notes about the subject's activities, but there were far more photographs of a digimon that had been dead for a while now, probably taken from afar when she didn't realize that she was under observation. That file was what bothered him most of all. 

"Ryo? Why the Arachnemon file?" 

This elicited a short, strained laugh from the retired Tamer. "Have you ever gotten a good look at her, Ken? Didn't you ever think of why she might have looked familiar? Did you ever wonder why I refrained from confronting her while she was out doing Oikawa's deeds for him?" 

"I've never considered any of that," Ken stated in a rather defensive manner. "I trust you're planning on enlightening me about it." 

"You're a clever boy, think about it. Oikawa oversaw Kageko's operation, and when it failed he had the Dark Seed ripped out and her body disposed of. What do you think a man like that might have done with a cute girl like Kageko? White hair like Kageko's is a very rare occurrence in the natural world, after all." 

Ken's eyes widened unconsciously as his mind followed Ryo's lead. Oikawa had lied to him about being the one who implanted the Dark Seed into him, so Oikawa might have lied about Arachnemon's origins as well. Oh, the man hadn't said anything outright, but there had been the stolen files Ryo still had hidden in the desk. According to one of the files that was a report to Oikawa's financial supporters, the man claimed to have created two digimon from the data of his own DNA. That had been dated after Kageko's death. Arachnemon had white hair. Kageko had white hair. Arachnemon had the same facial features as the girl he considered one of his few friends, but simply appeared much older. Arachnemon was most likely to have been created from Kageko's DNA, not Oikawa's. After all, Kageko had already been into the Digital World before, and who else could have been a better genetic donor and was so readily available? 

All those times that he and the other kids had fought against Arachnemon and Mummymon, all those times and he hadn't even considered that she might have once been human. And Mummymon... Who had been Mummymon's real genetic donor? 

The Child of Kindness sighed as he attempted to keep the swirl of rising emotions under control. "I'm glad that I didn't have a hand in her destruction." 

"You're not the only one," Ryo added as he gutted another fish. He had hoped Ken wouldn't discover those files, but since he hadn't gone to any real lengths to hide them, this was mostly his fault. In an attempt to change the subject, he decided to ask about the odd digimon that looked like an Archaeopteryx and was playing with Patamon and Wormmon. "So, who's the new digimon?" 

"Oh, Nahualmon? That's Mixcoatlmon's rookie form," the younger boy stated, grateful that the conversation had been redirected to less touchy subjects. "He didn't really have any place to go to since the Demon Corps was disbanded and he kept trying to follow me around. Takeru and I just thought it best if we adopted him for the time being. Besides, he doesn't have a reason anymore for going after me." 

"And it's better to keep something like that out of the hands of anyone who would use it to get to you. Good idea," Ryo responded. 

This brought a slight frown to Ken's face. "I wasn't thinking about the strategic aspects of that..." 

"Perhaps you were, subconsciously." As Ken shook his head at this, the older of the two frowned slightly. "There's no point in denying your natural talent for strategy. So you abused it once, big deal. You can't beat yourself up over that, and it's pointless to try to bury that aspect of yourself." 

"I'm not," countered the younger before he could fully think about his friend's words. The moment he spoke, however, he mentally rebutted himself for being so quick to deny it. "Well, not so much anymore." 

"Good, keep working on that. So, are you guys going to stick around for supper or are you going to head back?" 

Ken gazed thoughtfully at the rest of the campsite. He had never been as much a nature nut as Ryo, and would prefer to stay in a place other than a small tent that looked to be capable of holding only one person. "We should probably head back soon, we didn't think to bring any overnight gear. Besides, I doubt Savali would appreciate us eating his share of fish." 

"Yeah, there is that," Ryo muttered idly as he pulled out the fishscaler part of the multibladed pocketknife and continued his work. "Anything else?" 

Ken sighed as he stuffed a hand in his one of his pants pockets in an attempt to keep from fidgeting. This part was going to be difficult, but Ryo needed to know. "They've made me a Tamer in your place." 

Unfazed by Ken's words, Ryo simply continued carving the scales from his catch. He had expected this the moment they exiled him. "You were meant to be a Tamer, you know. Your permanent bond with Wormmon simply threw a wrench into things, which was why you got the designation of a Chosen. I'm assuming the Holy Beasts are simply making an exception for you since I've been training you for the Tamer job anyway." 

"That's what they told me," Ken offered. He was somewhat relieved that Ryo had seen this coming at least, it made things much less stressful than he imagined they would be. Ryo had been training him for this, but Ryo was also expecting to do so in hopes of having company. Now that Ryo was no longer a Tamer, he could only imagine what his friend was feeling. "Do you mind?" 

"No, but do you think you can handle the politics that come with the job," Ryo asked as he dumped the bits of fish meat in a pan that had been set aside a while ago. Ken didn't respond to him, but that was hardly surprising considering just how little Ken actually knew of the Digital World's politics. "You know you can come to me if you have any questions, right?" 

There was a pause as Ken considered the offer. He had only the faintest idea of what he would have to do as a Tamer, but since all the major evils of the Digital World were gone, he would be fine. Right? Regardless, it was not wise to dismiss any aid from someone with far more experience than himself. "Yes, I know. Thank you." 

Once again a silence fell between them as Ryo washed his hands and the bloody blades of the Swiss Army knife in the bucket Savali brought from the river. Ken turned to observe Takeru, who in turn was watching the digimon play. Nahualmon started and nearly flew off every time the tsukaimon smiled sinisterly at it, apparently having never forgotten its previous encounter with Savali's puppeteer strings. 

Something else nagged at him as his eyes caught with Takeru's. What it was, though, he wasn't quite sure. Some sort of premonition, if it could be called that, seemed to dance around his mind as a wisp of fog that could not be grasped. When Ryo seemed to be done with cleaning up the mess from his hands, Ken turned his attention back to his first Jogress partner. "Ryo? What happened to the Dark Seed after Jou removed it?" 

"Oh, that." The former Tamer took a moment to dig into one of his pockets, dragging out the small bag of ashes once he found it. "It's not really in a state where it'll bother anyone anymore. Want to do the honors and scatter this into the wind?" 

Taking the bag from his friend's fingers, Ken smirked down at the grains of dead matter. How long had he wanted to do something about the thing that ruined his life. how long had he waited for this opportunity? Well, he had it now at least, and there was a mountain close by. "You know, I think Takeru and I will stay for supper after all. I'm sure there are some nice winds up on that mountain's peak, and I'm sure you'd want to come along for the show." 

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Ryo said, grinning at the idea of seeing the ashes spread into the winds. He grabbed the pan and gestured Ken over to follow him to the campfire site. "Hope you two don't mind your fish with yams and mushrooms." 

Ken simply shook his head as he watched his friend settle down to light the fire. The wood was damp, however, and it was a while before the telltale tongues of oranges and yellows began to lap at them. There was still something that bugged him. 

Oikawa's financial supporters had to still be around, but where were they? Perhaps they still had Kageko's Dark Seed somewhere. It was a frightening thought, one he did not want to cling to for long. Would they do anything with it now that Oikawa was dead? 

As if by divine intervention, Takeru derailed his train of thought with nothing more than a few words of concern. Smiling thankfully at the blond, he simply stated that he was fine, and began to explain that he and Ryo were planning to scale the mountain close by to scatter the ashes of the Dark Seed. Takeru replied that he would be glad to go along. 

Once again the peaceful silence fell between them as their hands clasped together, Ken's fingers laced between Takeru's. And as their eyes met once again, Ken's thoughts settled on more pleasant matters. He could worry about everything else later, but now all he had to worry about was finding a more secluded area for far more personal purposes. 

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Ajora: A nahual is a sort of Aztec protective spirit, and an Archaeopterix is, of course, the feathered dinosaur much flaunted as the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds 

Oh dear, looks like my plotbunnies have been breeding again since I started this. Which means, of course, yet another fic in this universe. I'm sure everyone's already figured out anyway since I left some plot threads hanging. "Knight of Swords" is currently in the works and "Foreign Sands", the Tag Tamers era prequel, will be worked on after that. 


End file.
